51% mulatto, 37% white, 11% black and 0.1% Asian (mainly Chinese).
Religious affiliation
A constitutional amendment in 1992 changed Cuba from an atheistic state to a secular state, which should also enable believers to join the Communist Party. In addition to the main religion, Catholicism, there is the Santaría, a mixture of Catholicism with the African Yoruba religion, which the slaves brought with them from their homeland. It is estimated that 35% of Cubans are baptized, but many of them are Santaría followers. Numerous evangelical and Protestant congregations have sprung up in recent years. Among other things, there are 89,000 followers of Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose following has grown rapidly despite arrests and a ban on preaching. 56% of the population are without religious affiliation, 39% are Catholics or belong to Protestant and Jewish faith communities.
National language
The official language is Spanish.
Capital and other cities
The capital of Cuba is Havana with around 2.2 million residents. According to Abbreviation Finder, CUB stands for Cuba in English. Click to see other meanings of this 3-letter acronym.
Other cities are:
Santiago de Cuba with around 555,900 residents
Camagüey with around 347,600 residents
Holguín with around 319,100 residents
Guantánamo with around 319,100 residents
Santa Clara with around 250,500 residents
Trinidad with around 38,000 residents
Cuba: map
Cuba covers a total area of 110,860 km². Check topmbadirectory for politics, flags, famous people, animals and plants of Cuba.
Thereof:
Forest
Around 25% of the country is forested area (pine and mahogany)
Meadows and pastures
Around 5% of the land is used as meadow or pasture land
Fields and fields
Around 30% of the land is used as arable land or fields, especially for growing sugar cane, tobacco, coffee, yucca, corn and rice.
Mountains
25% of the country is mountainous.
National borders, distances and coastline
Borders
Due to its island location, the state has no direct borders with other states – with the exception of a limit to the US base at Guantanamo.
Distances
The distances between the USA in the north (Florida peninsula) are 160 km, in the west to Mexico (Yucatán peninsula) 210 km, south to Jamaica 110 km and in the east to Haiti 77 km.
Coastline
Cuba has a sea coast with a total length of around 3,500 km.
Tidal range
In Santiago de Cuba, the mean tidal range is only around 0.3 meters.
For detailed explanations of ebb and flow, see Tides, Ebb and Flow.
Compare
The world’s highest tidal range can be found in the Bay of Fundy in Canada, where it is up to 16 meters, and at spring tide even over 20 meters. The Bay of Fundy is located on the Atlantic between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which is called Nova Scotia in German and whose capital is Halifax.
On the German North Sea coast it varies between one and three meters. In the western Baltic Sea, on the other hand, the tidal range is only 0.3 meters, while it is barely noticeable in the eastern Baltic Sea.
Longitude and latitude
Cuba extends roughly over the following geographical latitude (abbreviation Δφ) and geographical longitude (abbreviation Δλ):
Δφ = from 19 to 24 north latitude Δλ = from 74 ° to 85 ° west longitude
You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.
Legal time
For Cuba, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET), i.e. the time without summer time. A minus sign means that it is earlier there and a plus sign that it is later than after CET:
Δt (CET) = – 6 h
More detailed explanations of the time can be found under: Time zones, time.
The highest point of the sun in Havana
Havana is located at a north latitude of around φ = 23 ° and thus just in the tropics.
If the declination δ of the sun has the value of 23 ° N, and thus the image point of the sun is exactly above the city or island, the sun is perpendicular there. This happens exactly twice a year, roughly two days before June 21st and two days after June 21st (for details, see the highest levels of the sun).
Attention
If the image point of the sun and thus the declination δ is north of the latitude of Havana, the sun is not in the south at noon, as in our latitudes, but in the north. However, this is only the case 4-5 days per year. In this case, the sun moves from east to north to west, where it then sets. However, this is only the case on a few days in midsummer.
Mountains
Pico Turquino
The highest mountain in the country is the Pico Turquino with a height of 1,972 m.
Other high mountains are:
Pico Cuba with a height of 1,872 m
Pico Cardero with a height of 1,265 m
Pico San Juan with a height of 1,156 m
Pan de Guajaibón with a height of 728 m
Rivers
Río Cuato
The longest river in the country is the Río Cuato with a length of 370 km.
Other rivers in the country are:
El Zaza with a length of around 150 km
El Saguala Grande with a length of around 150 km
El Agabama with a length of around 125 km
El Mayarí with a length of around 110 km
El Sagua de la Chica with a length of 105 km
El Tao with a length of 90 km
and the El Cauyaguateje with a length of around 80 km
Lakes
The country has very few lakes.
Lago Zaza
The largest lake is the Lago Zaza (fresh water reservoir) with a depth of up to 60 m, it comprises a water volume of up to 1.020 million km³ of water.
Laguna de la Leche
Another lake is the Laguna de la Leche with an area of about 66.5 km².
Islands
There are four large archipelagos around the island of Cuba.:
Jardines del Rey
In the north over the provinces of Matanzas, Las Villas and Camagüey are the Jardines del Rey with 400 islets.
Jardines de la Reina archipelago
South of Camagüey is the Jardines de la Reina archipelago .
Canarreas Archipelago The Canarreas
archipelago is located on the southern coast. With its 350 small islands, this archipelago belongs to Cuba’s largest island, Isla de Juventud with an area of 3,060 km².
Colorados archipelago
The north-western part of the island near Pinar del Río lies in front of the Colorado archipelago.
There are 1,600 cayos (small islets) around the coast of Cuba.
Caribbean, Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico
The Caribbean
Cuba borders the Gulf of Mexico in the northwest, the Atlantic Ocean in the east and the Caribbean Sea in the south and west. The Caribbean is a marginal sea of the Atlantic and lies between the islands of the Caribbean and the American continent. In the west, Mexico and other Central American states border the Caribbean. In the south of Colombia and Venezuela. The border in the east and north form the following islands or archipelagos starting from Venezuela in a semi-circle to the “actual” Atlantic: Trinidad and Tabago, Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba.
The deepest point in the Caribbean is the Cayman Rift between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands with a depth of 7,680 m. Together with the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean forms the “American Mediterranean”.
