I.

Introduction

Cuba, formally Republic of Cuba, independent republic located in the Caribbean Sea, some 145 km (90 mi) south of Florida in the United States, comprising two main islands, Cuba and Juventud Island (Isla de la Juventud, formerly Isle of Pines), and more than 1,600 small coral cays and islets. Cuba commands the two entrances to the Gulf of Mexico to the west: the Straits of Florida and the Yucatán Channel. On the east, the republic is separated from the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) by the Windward Passage; Jamaica lies to the south, the Bahama Islands to the north-east, and the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico to the west, across the Yucatán Channel. The republic has a total land area of 110,860 sq km (42,803 sq mi), of which almost 95 per cent is accounted for by the island of Cuba. The largest island in the Caribbean and the most westerly of the Greater Antilles group, Cuba is 110,860 sq km (42,803 sq mi) in area, and long and narrow in shape. It has a maximum length of about 1,225 km (760 mi)—between the westernmost and easternmost points, Cabo de San Antonio and Cabo Maisí—and a maximum width of about 191 km (119 m). Juventud Island, lying opposite the Bay of Batabanó on the south-western coast, in the Canarreos Archipelago, has an area of about 2,200 sq km (849 sq mi). Havana (in Spanish, La Habana), on the north-western coast, is the capital, largest city, and chief port of Cuba.