Havana

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This article is about the Cuban city. For other places named Havana, please see Havana (disambiguation)

Image:Havana, Cuba Location.png Image:Havananasa.jpg

Havana (Spanish in full: San Cristóbal de La Habana, usually shortened to just La Habana; UN/LOCODE: CU HAV) is the capital of Cuba and, with a population of 2.2 million, the largest city of Cuba. It is located at Template:Coor dm and is just over a 100 miles (160 km) south-southwest of Key West, Florida. The city of Havana ("Ciudad de la Habana") is one of the 14 provinces of Cuba. As of 2002, it had 2,201,610 inhabitants.

Contents 1 History 2 Municipalities 3 Other Places in Havana 4 Trivia 5 Further reading 6 Other images 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

History

Image:Memorial marti havana.jpg Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded Havana in 1515 on the southern coast of the island, near the current town Surgidero de Batabanó. Havana moved to its current location by the then called Carenas bay in 1519.

Havana was originally a trading port, and became the capital of the Spanish colony of Cuba in 1607, and the main port of the Spanish colonies in the New World.

Havana suffered from being burnt by buccaneers in 1538, and looted in 1555 and 1553. Great Britain seized the city in 1762 in the Seven Years' War, when they opened the port to free trade, bringing in thousands of enslaved Africans. When the war was over, they exchanged it for Florida the following year. After regaining the city, the Spanish made it the most heavily fortified city in the Americas.

In the 1920s during Prohibition in the United States, Havana, along with Montreal, became a popular vacation destination for U.S. citizens; the nightclubs and gambling survived Repeal of prohibition, but most were closed in 1959 after the Cuban Revolution.

On the night of July 8-9, 2005, the city took a direct hit from Hurricane Dennis.

Municipalities

The city is divided into 15 municipios - municipalities or boroughs.

1. Arroyo Naranjo
2. Boyeros
3. Centro Habana
4. Cerro
5. Cotorro
6. Diez de Octubre
7. Guanabacoa
8. La Habana del Este
9. La Habana Vieja (Old Havana)
10. La Lisa
11. Marianao
12. Playa (includes Miramar, and extends to Santa Fe in the west)
13. Plaza de la Revolución (sometimes abbreviated to 'Plaza'; includes Vedado)
14. Regla
15. San Miguel del Padrón

Other Places in Havana

• Malecón is the avenue that runs along the seawall at the northern shore of Havana, from Habana Vieja to Miramar.
• Jacomino is a stretch along the San Miguel road (west-east), between Vírgen del Camino and Ciudad Mar, and between Guardiola and La Fernanda (north-south). Its three major streets are Santa Emilia, Calzada and Beltrán.
• Havana's international airport is Jose Marti International Airport. It lies about 10 km south of the city center.

Trivia

• Havana is a sister city of Mobile, Alabama and Glasgow, Scotland.

• Havana was a candidate to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, but was not shortlisted.

Further reading

• Barclay, Juliet (1993). Havana: Portrait of a City. London: Cassell. ISBN 1844031276 (2003 paperback edition). — A comprehensive account on the history of Havana from the early 16th century to the end of the 19th century.
• Carpentier, Alejo. La ciudad de las columnas (The city of columns). — A historical review of the city from one of the major authors in the iberoamerican literature, native of this city.
• Eguren, Gustavo. La fidelísima Habana (The very faithful Havana). — A fundamental illustrated book for those who wants to know the history of La Habana, includes chronicles, articles from natives and non natives, archives documents, and more.

Other images

Havana, Capitol Building	1888 German map of Havana	Old Havana, 2002	Havana, Malecón, 2003
Panoramic view of Havana in 2004	Dusk on Havana's waterfront	The Moro Castle by night	Hotel Nacional de Cuba seen from Malecon
At the Necropolis Colon	Center of La Habana	Vedado district	Malecon at the Hotel Nacional

See also

• 1991 Pan American Games in Havana

References

• The Rough Guide to Cuba (3rd ed.). Rough Guides, May 2005. ISBN 1-84353-409-6.

External links

Template:Sisterlinks

• Template:Wikitravel
• Map of Havana. To zoom in, click on an area of the map. These are very large High resolution JPEG images (~1 Megabyte)
• Photos of people and Sights in Havana
• Havana's magnificent necropolis tells a story of wealth and freedom
• Havana Travel Photos
• Google maps
• Old Havana Web

Provinces of Cuba	Image:Flag of Cuba.svg
Camagüey | Ciego de Ávila | Cienfuegos | Ciudad de La Habana | Granma | Guantánamo | Holguín | La Habana (including the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud) | Las Tunas | Matanzas | Pinar del Río | Sancti Spíritus | Santiago de Cuba | Villa Clara

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