Havana
Havana is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. It is the most populous city, the largest by area, and the second-largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The population in 2021 was inhabitants, and its area is for the capital city and 8,475.57 km2 for the metropolitan zone. Its official population was 1,749,964 inhabitants in 2024.
Founded in 1519 on its current location on Havana Bay under initiative of the Spanish Empire, it had already taken an edge over Santiago by the mid 16th century due to the geo-strategic advantages of its harbor, becoming the capital of the island in 1552. It became a fundamental place for the Spanish colonial empire in the Americas, and a stopping point for galleons returning to the Iberian Peninsula, and walls and forts were built to protect it from naval attacks. The city is the seat of the Cuban government and various ministries, the headquarters of various businesses and home to more than 100 diplomatic offices. In 2009, the city had the third-highest income in the country.
Contemporary Havana can essentially be described as three cities in one: Old Havana, Vedado and the newer suburban districts. The city extends mostly westward and southward from the bay, which is entered through a narrow inlet and which divides into three main harbors: Marimelena, Guanabacoa and Antares. The Almendares River traverses the city from south to north, entering the Straits of Florida a few miles west of the bay.
The city attracts over amillion tourists annually. Old Havana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and monuments. As typical of Cuba, Havana experiences a tropical climate.
Etymology
In 1514, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded the town of San Cristóbal de la Habana, which means 'Saint Christopher of the Habana'. It has been theorized that the name is derived from Habaguanex, the chief of a local Taíno-speaking tribe about whom nothing else is known. When Habana was adapted into English, the was switched to a because of a linguistic phenomenon known as betacism, which is an assimilation of the voiced bilabial plosive and voiced labiodental fricative sounds that occurs in most modern Spanish dialects. Usage of the word Havana in literature understandably peaked during the Spanish–American War, but it also represents a type of cigar, a color, and a type of rabbit as well as the city. Havana is the prevailing name for the city found in English-language dictionaries.History
16th century
Beginnings
Diego Velázquez originally founded Havana in 1514, on the opposite coast, south of its current location. An early map of Cuba drawn in 1514 places it at the mouth of the Mayabeque River, now the town of Batabanó. This settlement failed, primarily due to the low and swampy nature of the land around the river. All attempts by the Spanish to establish a settlement in this area ultimately failed.Between 1514 and 1519, the Spanish established the first settlements on the northern coast of Cuba near present-day Havana. One of them was called La Chorrera, on the current site of the Tower of La Chorrera, next to the mouth of the Almendares River. This settlement was in a better location than the first on the southern coast, as the surrounding land was at a higher elevation and the landscape was less marshy. La Chorrera eventually became the neighborhoods of Vedado and Miramar.
The town that became Havana originated adjacent to what was then called Puerto de Carenas, in 1519. The quality of the Havana Harbor and its surrounding bay is what led to its change of location.
Pánfilo de Narváez gave Havana – the sixth town founded in Cuba – its name: San Cristóbal de la Habana. San Cristóbal is the patron saint of Havana. The first cities founded on the island served as little more than bases for the conquista of other lands.
Attacks
As Havana began as a trading port in the Caribbean, it suffered regular attacks by buccaneers, pirates, and French corsairs. The first attack and resultant burning of the city was by the French corsair Jacques de Sores in 1555. Such attacks convinced the Spanish Crown to fund the construction of the first fortresses in the main cities – not only to counteract the pirates and corsairs, but also to exert more control over commerce in the West Indies and to limit the extensive contrabando that had arisen due to the trade restrictions imposed by the Casa de Contratación of Seville.Ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, to be taken by the fleet to Spain. The thousands of ships that gathered in the city's bay fueled Havana's agriculture and manufacturing industries, since they had to be supplied with food, water, and other products needed to traverse the ocean.
On 20 December 1592, King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City. Later on, the city would be officially designated as "Key to the New World and Rampart of the West Indies" by the Spanish Crown. In the meantime, efforts to build or improve the defensive infrastructure of the city continued.
17th century
Havana expanded greatly during the 17th century. New buildings were constructed from the most abundant materials of the island, primarily wood, combining various Iberian architectural styles as well as borrowing extensively from Canarian characteristics. During this period, the city built many civic monuments and religious buildings, including the El Morro Castle, Convent of St Augustin, the Chapel of the Humilladero, the Fountain of Dorotea de la Lunin La Chorrera, the Church of the Holy Angel, the Hospital de San Lázaro, the Monastery of Santa Teresa, and the Convent of San Felipe Neri.In 1649, a fatal yellow fever epidemic brought from Cartagena killed a third of the population in Havana. In 1674, construction of the city walls started as part of the fortification efforts. It would be completed by 1740.
18th century
By the middle of the 18th century, Havana had more than seventy thousand inhabitants, making it the third-largest city in the Americas, ranking behind Lima and Mexico City but ahead of Boston and New York City.During this time, Havana was the most important port in the Spanish West Indies, as it had facilities where ships could be refitted before continuing their voyage. By 1740, it had become Spain's largest and most active shipyard and the only drydock in the New World.
Seven Years' War
The city was sieged by the British during the Siege of Havana in the Seven Years' War. The episode began on 6 June 1762, when at dawn, a British fleet comprising more than 50 ships and a combined force of over 11,000 men of the Royal Navy and Army, sailed into Cuban waters and made an amphibious landing east of Havana.After the siege, the British immediately opened up Havana to trade with their North American and Caribbean colonies, causing a rapid transformation of Cuban society. Less than a year after Havana was seized, the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1763 by the three warring powers, ending the war. The treaty ceded Spanish Florida to the British in exchange for the return of Havana to Spain.
After regaining the city, the Spanish transformed Havana into the most heavily fortified city in the Americas; similar to Cartagena, a city that under the leadership of Blas de Lezo defeated a British invasion of 30,000 sailors during the Battle of Cartagena in 1741. Construction began on what was to become the Fortress of San Carlos de la Cabaña, the third biggest Spanish fortification in the New World after Castillo San Cristóbal and Castillo San Felipe del Morro, both located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
On 15 January 1796, the remains of Christopher Columbus were transported to Cuba from Santo Domingo. They rested there until 1898, when they were transferred to the Seville Cathedral after Spain's loss of Cuba in the Spanish-American War.
19th century
As trade between the Caribbean and North America increased in the early 19th century, Havana became a flourishing city. Havana's theaters featured the most distinguished actors of the day, and prosperity among the burgeoning middle-class led to expensive new classical mansions being erected. During this period, Havana became known as the "Paris of the Antilles".In 1837, the first railroad in the country was constructed in Havana, a stretch between Havana and Bejucal, which was used to transport sugar from the valley of Güines to the port of Havana. With this, Cuba became the seventh country in the world to have a railroad, and the first Latin American and Spanish-speaking country to do so.
Throughout the century, Havana continued constructing additional cultural facilities, such as the Tacón Theatre, which later became the Gran Teatro de La Habana. In 1863, the city walls were knocked down so that the city could be expanded.
Slavery in Cuba was legal until 1886, leading to interest from slavers in the American South who were looking for ways to preserve a slave state. The Knights of the Golden Circle proposed a 1200mile-radius 'Golden Circle' where slavery would still be permitted. The circle would be centered on Havana and encompass much of North America.
After the Confederate States of America were defeated in the American Civil War in 1865, many former slaveholders fled to Havana on ships, including Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin and Vice President and Confederate Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge. Many refugees stayed in Cuba until Andrew Johnson granted amnesty to former Confederates in 1868.