Portal:Cuba

Welcome to the Cuba Portal

Location of Cuba in the Caribbean
Republic of Cuba
República de Cuba (Spanish)

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud, archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 11 million inhabitants. It is the largest country in the Caribbean by area.

Cuba is a socialist state, in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian government where political opposition is not permitted. Censorship is extensive and independent journalism is repressed; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries for press freedom. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. It is a multiethnic country whose people, culture and customs derive from diverse origins, including the Taíno Ciboney peoples, the long period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of enslaved Africans and a close relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. (Full article...)

A street in Parque Vidal, the heart of Santa Clara
Santa Clara is the capital city of the Cuban province of Villa Clara. It is centrally located in the province and Cuba. Santa Clara is the fifth-most populous Cuban city, with a population of nearly 245,959. (Full article...)
List of selected articles

General images

The following are images from various Cuba-related articles on Wikipedia.

Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that José Ramón Balaguer fought as a soldier-medic for Fidel Castro's rebel army before becoming Cuba's minister of public health?
  • ... that before his Major League Baseball career, Leo Posada represented Cuba internationally in cycling?
  • ... that after his movement's victory in the Cuban Revolution, television broadcasts showed Camilo Cienfuegos freeing parrots from birdcages, declaring that the birds had "a right to liberty"?
  • ... that after his release from a hospital for the criminally insane, Richard Dixon burgled $16 from a credit union and hijacked a jet to Cuba?
  • ... that Rudi Kappel, co-founder of the first airline of Suriname, was arrested both on entering and leaving Santiago de Cuba?
  • ... that Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress Melissa Fumero is the daughter of Cubans who fled to the U.S. as teenagers?

Recognized content - show another

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

Castro c. 1959

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (/ˈkæstr/ KASS-troh, Latin American Spanish: [fiˈðel aleˈxandɾo ˈkastɾo ˈrus]; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.

Born in Birán, the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist and anti-imperialist ideas while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban president Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, Castro travelled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's prime minister. The United States came to oppose Castro's government and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic embargo, and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis—a defining incident of the Cold War—in 1962. (Full article...)

Selected biography - show another

Manuel Urrutia in 1959
Manuel Urrutia Lleó (December 8, 1901 – 5 July 1981) was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. He campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the dictatorial second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the revolutionary government of 1959. Urrutia resigned his position after only seven months, owing to a series of disputes with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and emigrated to the United States shortly afterward. (Full article...)
List of selected biographies

Selected picture

Tower at Manaca Ignaza
Tower at Manaca Ignaza
Church tower at Manaca Ignaza, Valle de los Ingenios

More did you know - show different entries

More did you know... New articles...

Topics

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

WikiProjects

Recognized content

Extended content

Good articles

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

More portals


© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search