Cuba

Havana serves as the political, cultural and economic heart of Cuba, positioned in Caribbean. As the seat of government and often the most populous city, it concentrates the country's main institutions, universities and cultural landmarks. Beyond the capital, major cities include Santiago de Cuba, Camagüey — each a hub of regional culture, economy and history. Havana's Old Town (Habana Vieja) is a UNESCO World Heritage site where Spanish colonial plazas, baroque churches, and crumbling but magnificent mansion facades coexist with classic American cars from the 1950s still running on improvised mechanical ingenuity — a city often described as the world's most beautiful ruin.

With a population of approximately 11.3M, Cuba is a vibrant society with a rich mix of traditions and communities. The official language is Spanish, which reflects the country's cultural heritage and connects it with a wide international community. Internationally, Cuba is reached via the dialling code +53. Cubans navigated 60 years of the US embargo with a particular mix of pride and pragmatic improvisation — the word 'resolver' (to resolve/figure it out) functions as both verb and national philosophy, describing the daily resourcefulness required when the formal economy cannot supply what daily life demands.

Cuba spans 109,884 km², in the Caribbean subregion of Americas. Geographically centred around 21.5°N, 80.0°W, the country offers a diverse range of landscapes shaped by its location, climate and geology. Road traffic follows the right-hand rule, in line with surrounding Americas convention.

The official currency is the Cuban convertible peso ($), Cuban peso ($), used for everyday transactions and commerce throughout the country. Cuba's economy is shaped by its geography, natural resources and trade relationships. Business and daily life operate under UTC-05:00, aligning the country with its regional neighbours.

The emblematic dish of Cuba is Ropa Vieja. Cuban cooking is simpler than the wider Caribbean tradition — ropa vieja (shredded beef in tomato sauce), black beans, rice, and fried plantains form a canon whose flavours depend on the sofrito base of onions, garlic, cumin, and bay leaf sautéed in oil until fragrant, an unchanging foundation across otherwise varied home kitchens.

Baseball holds a special place in the heart of Cuba's national identity. Baseball arrived in Cuba via American sailors in the 1860s and was immediately embraced as a vehicle for anti-Spanish sentiment — becoming so embedded in national identity that the Cuban national team won Olympic gold three times and Cuban defectors constitute a significant fraction of major league rosters, creating a diaspora sporting bridge across the political divide.

The highest point in Cuba is Pico Turquino, rising to 1,974 metres above sea level. Viñales Valley in Pinar del Río is a limestone karst landscape of rounded mogotes (haystack hills) rising from tobacco fields, where the tobacco grown in the red clay soil is considered the world's finest — a cultural landscape where farming methods unchanged since the 18th century were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1999.