49 Fun Facts About Havana

Havana is the capital of which country?

Havana is Cuba's capital and largest city, with about 2.1 million people, lying on the island's north-west coast some 90 miles south of Key West.

Havana overtook which city to become Cuba's capital in 1552?

The deep, sheltered harbour was the deciding advantage, and it made Havana the gathering point for treasure galleons heading home to Spain.

What is the full Spanish name given to the town that became Havana?

The town was christened San Cristóbal de la Habana in honour of Saint Christopher, the city's patron saint, whose feast on 16 November is kept as Havana's anniversary.

The name 'Habana' is thought to come from Habaguanex, who was what?

Habaguanex was a Taíno chief, or cacique, said to have controlled the region when the Spanish arrived; little else is recorded of him, so the derivation stays a theory.

Why is the city spelled with a 'v' in English but a 'b' in Spanish?

In most Spanish dialects the 'b' and 'v' sounds merge, so English writers heard and wrote a 'v'.

Where did Diego Velázquez first found Havana in 1514?

The low, swampy ground near the Mayabeque River doomed the settlement, and every Spanish attempt to build there failed.

Which French corsair captured and burned Havana in 1555?

Jacques de Sores, a Huguenot corsair, seized Havana in July 1555 and burned it when no great ransom was paid; the raid pushed Spain to fortify its main Caribbean ports.

Which king granted Havana the title of City in 1592?

Philip II raised Havana from town to city in 1592, recognising the port's role as assembly point of the treasure fleets; the Crown later styled it 'Key to the New World'.

A 1649 epidemic that killed a third of Havana's population was which disease?

Yellow fever, carried by ships from Cartagena in present-day Colombia, swept Havana in 1649 during the first recorded outbreaks of the disease in the Americas.

By the mid-18th century Havana ranked third in the Americas by population, behind which pair?

With more than 70,000 residents Havana trailed only Lima and Mexico City in the Americas, outranking Boston and New York; its royal shipyard was building warships for Spain's navy.

Which power captured Havana in a 1762 siege during the Seven Years' War?

Britain's expedition of more than 50 ships and 11,000 men landed east of the city and took it after a two-month siege; the occupiers opened Havana to trade with their colonies.

Under the 1763 Treaty of Paris, Spain got Havana back in exchange for what?

Spain ceded Florida to recover Havana, then made the city the most heavily fortified in the Americas, starting the huge La Cabaña fortress in 1763.

Whose remains were moved to Havana in 1796 and stayed until 1898?

Christopher Columbus's remains were shipped from Santo Domingo to Havana's cathedral in 1796 and moved to Seville Cathedral in 1898 after Spain lost Cuba.

In the 19th century Havana earned which nickname?

Trade with North America paid for theatres and neoclassical mansions, and by the late 19th century Havana's elegance earned it the nickname 'Paris of the Antilles'.

The sinking of which US battleship in Havana Harbor triggered the Spanish–American War?

USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898, killing about 260 men; 'Remember the Maine' fuelled the push for war with Spain.

Havana became the capital of the independent Republic of Cuba in which year?

The Republic of Cuba was proclaimed on 20 May 1902 with Havana as its capital, and Tomás Estrada Palma was inaugurated there as the first president.

Which Confederate Secretary of State fled to Havana after the American Civil War?

Judah P. Benjamin escaped by way of the Bahamas to Havana in 1865, then sailed for England, where he rebuilt his career as a barrister and Queen's Counsel.

Old Havana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?

UNESCO inscribed Old Havana and its fortifications in 1982; city historian Eusebio Leal Spengler then led a decades-long restoration of the colonial core until his death in 2020.

How many municipalities is Havana divided into?

Havana is divided into 15 municipalities, from Playa in the west to Habana del Este across the bay, which are further split into 105 consejos populares, or wards.

Which river crosses Havana from south to north before reaching the sea a few miles west of the bay?

The Almendares rises south of the city and flows north to the sea west of the bay; the Torreón de la Chorrera, a 1646 watchtower, guards its mouth.

Havana's climate is classed under Köppen as which type?

Havana has a tropical savanna (Köppen Aw) climate, with a wet season from May to October and a drier winter; trade winds temper the heat and winter lows rarely fall below 10 °C.

What rare disaster struck eastern Havana in January 2019?

An EF4 tornado tore through Regla, Guanabacoa and Diez de Octubre on 27 January 2019, killing several people and damaging thousands of homes, the first of that strength in Cuba since 1940.

Which Havana neighbourhood is the city's financial district and home to the University of Havana?

Vedado, laid out on a grid west of Centro Habana, is the financial district and home to the University of Havana; its high-rise hotels and casinos went up in the 1950s for American tourists.

The University of Havana was established in which year?

The University of Havana was founded in 1728 by Dominican friars as the Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo de La Habana, in the Dominican convent of Old Havana.

Havana's international airport is named after which figure?

José Martí International Airport, in the Boyeros municipality south-west of the centre, honours the poet and independence hero who died in battle in 1895; it is Cubana de Aviación's hub.

What was the Havana Hilton, opened in 1958, famous for during 1959?

Built for $24 million under Batista, it is now the Hotel Tryp Habana Libre.

Which giant state ice-cream parlour opened in Havana in 1966?

Coppelia, the state ice-cream parlour opened in 1966 at the top of La Rampa, serves thousands of customers daily from its circular pavilion and appears in the 1993 film Strawberry and Chocolate.

The Bacardi Building, finished in 1930, is a celebrated example of which style?

The Edificio Bacardí is Havana's finest Art Deco landmark, faced in red granite and terracotta and topped by a stepped tower bearing the company's bat emblem.

The Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón, built in 1876, holds roughly how many tombs?

It is one of the most famous cemeteries in Latin America and functions as an open-air museum.

The Havana team Industriales plays which sport?

Industriales, nicknamed the Blue Lions, are Havana's baseball team in Cuba's National Series and its most successful club, playing at the 55,000-seat Estadio Latinoamericano.

Havana hosted the Pan American Games in which year?

Havana staged the 1991 Pan American Games, building the Estadio Panamericano and a sports complex in the eastern suburbs; Cuba won 140 gold medals to top the table.

Which Havana cigar brand, launched in 1935, took its name from a Dumas novel?

Montecristo was created in 1935 by Menéndez and García at Havana's H. Upmann factory, named after The Count of Monte Cristo, a favourite of the readers who entertained the cigar rollers.

The Havana Film Festival, founded in 1979, focuses on filmmakers from where?

The festival, formally the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, was founded in 1979 to showcase Latin American filmmakers and takes place in Havana each December.

How long is the Malecón, Havana's seaside esplanade?

The Malecón runs about 8 km along the seafront west from the harbour mouth in Old Havana, and hosted the Cuban Grand Prix sports-car races in 1957 and 1958.

Construction of the Malecón began in 1901 while Havana was under whose control?

Work began in 1901 under the US military occupation that followed the war with Spain; the first stretch was built to shield the San Lázaro waterfront from waves driven by northern cold fronts.

Which president commissioned El Capitolio, built from 1926 to 1929?

President Gerardo Machado commissioned El Capitolio, finished in 1929 after three years' work by more than 5,000 labourers at a cost of around 17 million dollars.

What is embedded in the floor of El Capitolio's main hall to mark Cuba's Kilometre Zero?

A replica diamond marks Kilometre Zero; the original 25-carat stone, said to have belonged to Tsar Nicholas II, was stolen in 1946 and mysteriously returned to the president in 1947.

El Capitolio's Statue of the Republic is the third-largest indoor statue after the Buddha of Nara and which other?

Sculptor Angelo Zanelli cast the bronze figure in Rome in three pieces and it was covered in 22-carat gold leaf.

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba hosted a 1946 mob summit run by Meyer Lansky and which other gangster?

Lucky Luciano, freshly deported from the US to Italy, came to Havana in December 1946 to convene the mob summit with Meyer Lansky; Coppola dramatised it in The Godfather Part II.

Which New York firm designed the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, opened in 1930?

McKim, Mead and White, the New York firm behind Pennsylvania Station, designed the Hotel Nacional in an eclectic style mixing neoclassical, Spanish colonial and Moorish elements; it opened in December 1930.

Ernest Hemingway's Havana home, Finca Vigía, was bought in 1940 for how much?

Hemingway paid $12,500 for Finca Vigía in December 1940 out of his For Whom the Bell Tolls earnings; Martha Gellhorn had found the hilltop house in San Francisco de Paula the year before.

Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea at Finca Vigía about a fisherman from which nearby town?

Cojímar, the fishing village east of Havana where Hemingway moored his boat Pilar, inspired the setting; his skipper Gregorio Fuentes was long claimed as a model for the old fisherman.

Which American guitarist produced the 1997 Buena Vista Social Club album?

Ry Cooder produced the album at Havana's EGREM studios in March 1997 with Juan de Marcos González, reviving veterans such as Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer; Wim Wenders' documentary followed in 1999.

Havana Club rum, created in 1934, was originally produced in which Cuban town?

Havana Club was launched in 1934 by the Arechabala family's distillery in the port of Cárdenas, east of Havana; after the 1960 nationalisation the brand passed to the Cuban state, later partnered with Pernod Ricard.

Camila Cabello's hit 'Havana' features which rapper?

Young Thug raps the guest verse on 'Havana', which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in January 2018 and was named the IFPI's best-selling digital single of that year.

The town that became Havana grew up in 1519 beside a harbour known then by what name?

Sebastián de Ocampo named the bay Puerto de Carenas, 'Careening Port', in 1508 after careening his ships there; its shelter drew the settlers who refounded the town beside it in 1519.

In which year were Havana's city walls knocked down so the city could expand?

Demolition of the 17th-century walls began in 1863, letting Havana spread west; only a few fragments survive, such as those near the Central Railway Station.

The Hershey Electric Railway, built in 1917, links Casablanca across the harbour with Hershey and which city?

The Hershey line was built by the American chocolate company to serve its sugar mill at Hershey, running about 90 km from Casablanca to Matanzas under overhead electric wires.

Havana's coat of arms shows three castles. Besides the Morro and Punta castles, which is the third?

A key on the arms symbolises Havana as the gateway to the New World.