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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 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.
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.
Source: Wikipedia |
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