Each region offers its own unique attractions, scenery, differences in climate and geography and cultural distinctions.
One of the liveliest cities, the provincial capital of Santa Clara, landlocked near the centre of Villa Clara province, is known as a good place to soak up unfiltered Cuban culture. It is located in the most central region of the province and almost in the most central region of the country. Santiago is the second-largest city behind Havana.
A historical and cultural treasure, the city is often regarded as the root of the Cuban Revolution, and the many museums here retrace key events from this important period of history.
It lies in the southeastern area of the island, km southeast of the capital, Havana. Located in the east, the fourth-largest city is known as the City of Parks.
For more than 2 decades, Hemingway occupied the hilltop villa built in by Catalan architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer. The rocks rested as horizontal layers on the bottom of the sea. The sea was between the North American and Central American lithospheric plates.
Lithospheric plates are large sections of Earth's rocky outer layer. They have been converging for millions of years. Their collision forced rocks on the seafloor between them to rise gradually as a platform and to expose Cuba about 21 million years ago. Folding, faulting, volcanism, and earthquakes accompanied this uplift.
Consequently, Cuba's land surface does not have the flatness of an ancient seafloor. Geologists believe that plate convergence and uplift are still in progress, as occasionally the eastern end of the island experiences powerful earthquakes.
One of the extraordinary aspects of Cuba's landforms is its karst topography. Karst is the Slavic name of limestone areas in Slovenia and Croatia. Geologists use this term to describe landforms of limestone areas' peculiar surface features and where most or all water drainage occurs through underground channels. Cuba has some of the world's most picturesque karst landscapes. Karst topography forms wherever acid in surface streams or groundwater dissolves soft limestone. Sinkholes hoyos are saucer-shaped depressions where surface water collects, sinks, and disappears as groundwater.
The acid water filters down from the sinkholes and dissolves the limestone beneath to create underground networks of streams. These streams dissolve more limestone to form cave systems.
Caverns are the largest caves. Sometimes roofs of caverns become fragile and collapse, leaving enclosed basins poljes. When several caverns close to one another collapse, they create large, flat-bottomed depressions with only steep-sided, coneshaped hills mogotes left standing. Cotilla Caverns, about 15 miles 24 kilometers southeast of Havana, are probably the most frequently visited caves in Cuba. Caverns in Cuba are attractive to tourists because of their natural beauty. However, speleologists people who study caves have not adequately explored most of the island's caves.
Moreover, people have abused many of them. For example, Cuba's military uses many of the largest caverns to store armaments, explosives, and chemical products. Additionally, agricultural and industrial enterprises discharge tons of wastewater into many caves and sinkholes. Ranchers even use some caves to dispose of dead cattie. These practices not only destroy the beauty of the caves, but they also threaten sensitive habitats of plants and animals and pollute the groundwater that travels through the caves.
Limestone forms a rolling lowland plain that covers about 60 percent of the island's surface. The plain begins at the base of the Sierra Maestra a mountain range on the east end of the island , narrows as it arcs north of the foothill town of Santa Clara, and ends at the base of the Sierra de los Organos a mountain range on the west end of the island.
The plain is not perfectly level. To the north, stepped limestone terraces descend quickly toward knife-edged sea cliffs. To the south, the plain slopes gently toward the soft contours of beaches and mangrove swamps.
Low hills of hard igneous and metamorphic rocks break up the plain in several places. Low, steep-sided hills of limestone also are present. The Zapata Peninsula , with its many lagoons, lakes, and swamps, is also a distinctive lowland feature.
About 25 percent of Cuba's surface is mountainous. The island's mountains were formed by the collision of tectonic plates.
Compression causes two general types of mountains: folded and fault-block. Compression created folded mountains in Cuba when the horizontal layers of sedimentary rock on the bottom of the sea gave in to the pressure of converging plates: up-folds became ridges, down-folds valleys. Compression also caused huge blocks of rock on either side of faults breaks in Earth's crust along which movement occurs to move up or down, creating fault-block mountains.
Magma molten rock formed deep inside Earth moved into the faults and onto the surface and cooled to form various types of igneous volcanic rocks in the mountains. There are three mountainous areas in Cuba. Eastern Cuba has the highest mountains, which include the Sierra Maestra and the Baracoa massif.
A massif is a very rugged elevated area composed of numerous mountain ranges. The Sierra Maestra is a fault-block mountain range that rises steeply out of the sea. Many dark-colored volcanic rocks make up this range. The Sierra Maestra includes Cuba's highest peak, Pico Turquino, which rises about 6, feet 2, meters above sea level. This magnificent peak provides a view of the Caribbean Sea to the south and, on a clear night, lights glimmering across the Windward Passage in Haiti are visible.
At the very eastern end of the island is the Baracoa massif. The massif's highest summits, which are in the impressive Sierra de Cristal mountain range, rise to about 4, feet 1, meters. Geologically, the Baracoa massif is a mixture of both folding and faulting. It is made mostly of igneous rock. A narrow valley separates Sierra Maestra and the Baracoa massif.
This valley serves as a transportation corridor connecting agricultural towns in the broad Cuato River lowland with coastal ports situated on the eastern end of the island.
The second mountainous area is in central Cuba, south of the city of Santa Clara. Traveling south from Santa Clara, there are low, parallel limestone ridges in which many caves and other karst phenomena have developed.
Still farther south, at the edge of Cuba's south shore, is the Sierra del Escambray. This fault-block mountain range dominates the area. Its erosion-resistant summits rise to about 3, feet 1, meters. The third mountainous area, Cordillera de Guaniguanico, which is in the western end of the island, includes two mountain ranges—Sierra del Rosario and Sierra de los Organos.
The highest summit, which is in Sierra de los Organos, is Pico Grande at about 3, feet meters in elevation. However, most elevations in both mountain ranges are well below that height. Despite the lower elevations, the western mountains are very picturesque because of their highly developed karst features.
Throughout Cuba's history, gold, manganese, nickel, chromium, and iron ore have been mined from its mountains. Because of their rugged terrain, these same mountains also have served as safe havens for the many peoples who arrived on Cuba's shores seeking a new home.
For example, before Europeans arrived, successive waves of Indians from other regions invaded Cuba. Each time a new group of invaders arrived on the island, some of the Indians who preceded the invaders managed to flee into the mountains. The same dispersal happened when the Spanish arrived. Additionally, when Fidel Castro began his successful revolt against the Cuban government, he used the Sierra Maestra as his main base of operations. Cuba's coastline has reefs, cays, and beaches.
These three features come from remains of coral polyps invertebrate animals. Coral polyps are tiny animals that live together in colonies in warm, shallow seawater. When they die, their lime skeletons stay behind to build reefs made of limestone. Coral reefs are hazardous to ships, because they lurk just beneath the ocean surface most of the time some reefs are exposed at low tide.
The remains of an immense number of coral polyps make up a single coral reef. Reefs fringe most of Cuba's coastline, making it dangerous for unwary sailors. Over time, coral reefs can grow so large that they become low islands or cays. The Camaguey archipelago, which runs parallel to the main island's north-central coastline, is Cuba's largest cay. Other prominent archipelagos made of low coral islands include Sabana and Canarreos.
Sand grains from skeletons of dead coral polyps make up most of Cuba's beaches. It stretches miles 1, kilometers from east to west, but is only 60 miles kilometers wide in most places.
High mountains and rolling hills cover about one-third of Cuba. The other two-thirds of the island are lowland plains used mainly for farming. The mixture of native, African, and European influences in Cuba gives this island a lively culture that is known around the world. The introduction of communism to the country in has had a big impact on the people, both positive and negative. Cuba's history is reflected in its food, language, art, and, most of all, its music.
All year round, it seems as if bands are everywhere in Havana. The main musical form is called son, which combines lively rhythms with classical guitar. Unlike most countries in Latin America, Cuba's favorite sport is not soccer. It's baseball! Baseball came to Cuba from the United States in the s. Many international baseball stars have come from Cuba, and the Cuban national team is one of the best in the world.
Cuba has many different habitats, from mountain forests to jungles and grasslands. There are even small deserts. These different ecosystems are home to unique plants and animals found only in Cuba. Many interesting creatures live in Cuba's thick forests. Most famous is the bee hummingbird, the world's smallest bird. Adult bee hummingbirds grow to only two inches five centimeters long.
The world's smallest frog also lives in Cuba.
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