The People

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Entry Page - The Architecture - The Land

Cuba is the most populous Caribbean nation state. It has 33% of the region's residents.

Sadly though, with a natural increase rate of 5.8% per year, it has one of the lowest population increase rates in the Western Hemisphere.

Most of the Cuban population is highly urban. Areas of heaviest population are around Havana in the west and Santiago de Cuba in the east. More than 33% of the entire population lives in Havana or its surroundings. Periodic attempts to reduce the concentration of people in and around Havana have not worked. Santiago de Cuba and its surroundings have the second largest population, close to 1 million. Below are some urban sights from Cuba:

Ethnic identifications are not easily established in Cuba. An estimate from 1994 stated that 37% of the population was "white," 51% were "mixed," and only 11% as "black." The white population is believed to have come from the continuous immigration of Spanish settlers from Spain, the Canary Islands, and elsewhere in Spanish America. Between 1880 and 1914 it is said that more than 600,000 Spaniards immigrated to Cuba, along with a variety of Americans, British, French, and German immigrants. Most original African "immigrants" are said to have arrived as slaves during the sugar boom of the 19th century. Indeed, most arrived during the long transatlantic slave trade that ended in Cuba only by 1870. Below are some current images of the Cuban people engaged in celebrations and daily activities:

And, of course, an occasional tourist comes in too, such as this one below:

In Cuba, the term Creole indicates a locally born person without regard to their ancestry. This is the definition common in most of Spanish America. The term Criollo means Cuban born. The term Bozal means African born, especially referring to slaves. But from 1843 to 1871 approximately 100,000 Chinese were also imported by Cuba to ease the transition from slave to wage labor on the sugar plantations. Some remained to form a small community in Cuba. In 1902 a smaller number of Turks, Lebanese, Syrians, and Jews also came to Cuba.

Hence, the present population of Cuba is very mixed and reflects the meetings and merging of the various immigrant groups named above along with the original indigenous people who survived the period of Spanish colonialism. Below are photos that give further evidence of the ethnic diversity in Cuba:

Sources:

1. Encyclopedia Americana Online, "Cuba." See <http://ea.grolier.com/cgi-bin/build-page?artbaseid=0114950-0>

2. Aviva Chomsky. "Barbados or Canada? Race, Immigration, and Nation in Early-Twentieth-Century Cuba."Hispanic American Historical Review 80.3 (2000) 415-462. See <http://muse.jhu.edu/journal...historical_review/v080/80.3chomsky.html>

Entry Page - The Architecture - The Land