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Cuba
The largest Caribbean island, layered in history and music
Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and one of the most storied, a long green crocodile of a country stretching across the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. Around eleven million people live amid colonial cities, tobacco valleys, sugar plains, and beaches, in a nation whose 1959 revolution made it a singular socialist state ninety miles from Florida. From son and salsa to vintage American cars and the cigars of Pinar del Rio, Cuba's culture radiates far beyond its shores even as its economy struggles.
Most of Cuba is low, fertile plain and rolling hills ideal for sugar and tobacco, but the southeast rises into the Sierra Maestra, where Pico Turquino reaches 1,974 meters. The Vinales Valley is famed for its limestone mogotes, while mangroves, cays, and coral reefs fringe the long coast. The climate is tropical, with a wet season and exposure to powerful hurricanes sweeping in from the Atlantic and Caribbean.
A Spanish colony for centuries and briefly under US influence after 1898, Cuba was transformed by Fidel Castro's revolution and decades of confrontation with Washington, including the 1962 missile crisis. The state-led economy, battered by the loss of Soviet support and a long US embargo, leans on tourism, nickel, medical services, and remittances. Economic reform, migration, and uncertain relations with the United States define its present.