Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

[42] Within a century, the Indigenous people faced high incidence of mortality due to multiple factors, primarily Eurasian infectious diseases, to which they had no natural resistance (immunity), aggravated by the harsh conditions of the repressive colonial subjugation.

General Valeriano Weyler, the military governor of Cuba, herded the rural population into what he called reconcentrados, described by international observers as "fortified towns".

[65] Between 200,000[66] and 400,000 Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease in the Spanish concentration camps, numbers verified by the Red Cross and United States Senator Redfield Proctor, a former Secretary of War.

Following disputed elections in 1906, the first president, Tomás Estrada Palma, faced an armed revolt by independence war veterans who defeated the meager government forces.

[81] On balance, during the period 1933–1940 Cuba suffered from fragile political structures, reflected in the fact that it saw three different presidents in two years (1935–1936), and in the militaristic and repressive policies of Batista as Head of the Army.

[87] Cuban armed forces were not greatly involved in combat during World War II—though president Batista did suggest a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Francoist Spain to overthrow its authoritarian regime.

[83] The two terms of the Auténtico Party brought an influx of investment, which fueled an economic boom, raised living standards for all segments of society, and created a middle class in most urban areas.

[93] Back in power, and receiving financial, military, and logistical support from the United States government, Batista suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike.

[96] However, in his "History Will Absolve Me" speech, Fidel Castro mentioned that national issues relating to land, industrialization, housing, unemployment, education, and health were contemporary problems.

[105] Militant anti-Castro groups, funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Rafael Trujillo, carried out armed attacks and set up guerrilla bases in Cuba's mountainous regions.

[111][112] In response, between 1960 and 1964 the U.S. imposed a range of sanctions, eventually including a total ban on trade between the countries and a freeze on all Cuban-owned assets in the U.S.[113] In February 1960, Castro signed a commercial agreement with Soviet Vice-Premier Anastas Mikoyan.

[121] Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo founded the anti-Castro group Alpha 66 in the early 1960s, which used small craft to attack Cuban and Soviet merchant ships, killing or wounding crew members.

In December 1977, Cuba sent its combat troops from Angola, the People's Republic of the Congo, and the Caribbean to Ethiopia,[125] assisted by mechanized Soviet battalions, to help defeat a Somali invasion.

[136]: 37–38 After the U.S. was defeated in the Vietnam War, Castro began supporting Marxist insurgencies in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Colombia by supplying weapons, munitions, and training.

Official policies of the Cuban government from 1959 until the 1990s were hostile towards homosexuality, with the LGBT community marginalized on the basis of heteronormativity, traditional gender roles, and strict criteria for moralism.

The warm temperatures of the Caribbean Sea and the fact that Cuba sits across the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico combine to make the country prone to frequent hurricanes.

Hurricane Irma hit the island on 8 September 2017, with winds of 260 km/h (72 m/s),[168] at the Camagüey Archipelago; the storm reached Ciego de Avila province around midnight and continued to pound Cuba the next day.

[217] Five years later, an agreement between the United States and Cuba, popularly called the "Cuban thaw", brokered in part by Canada and Pope Francis, began the process of restoring international relations between the two countries.

[229][230] Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow in November 2022, where the two leaders opened a monument of Fidel Castro, as well as speaking out against U.S. sanctions against Russia and Cuba.

This action was initiated in response to a wave of nationalizations that impacted American properties valued at over US$1 billion, the then U.S.[232] President, Dwight Eisenhower, instated an embargo that prohibited all exports to Cuba, with the exception of medicines and certain foods.

[275] Cuba's major exports are sugar, nickel, tobacco, fish, medical products, citrus fruits, and coffee;[275] imports include food, fuel, clothing, and machinery.

A spokesperson blamed the increased U.S. trade embargo although economists believe that an equally important problem is the massive decline of aid from Venezuela and the failure of Cuba's state-run oil company which had subsidized fuel costs.

[314] According to a Government of Canada travel advice website, "Cuba is actively working to prevent child sex tourism, and a number of tourists, including Canadians, have been convicted of offenses related to the corruption of minors aged 16 and under.

In fact, the Minority Rights Group International determined that "An objective assessment of the situation of Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic studies both pre- and post-revolution.

[329] Other prominent immigrant groups included French,[330] Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Greek, British, and Irish, as well as small number of descendants of U.S. citizens who arrived in Cuba in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Many have resorted to selling their homes at very low prices to afford one-way flights to Nicaragua, hoping to travel through Mexico to reach the U.S.[339] For those remaining among the island's 11 million inhabitants, life grows increasingly desperate.

After the triumph of the Revolution, architecture received a strong Soviet influence with its desire for symmetry and space saving, and entire new neighborhoods were built in the style of the working-class quarters of Moscow or Minsk.

When the Berlin Wall fell, architecture received more diverse currents and there was a boom in 5 star hotels with impressive glass and steel facades in the style of modern skyscrapers in Manhattan or other Latin American metropolises such as Mexico City or Caracas.

The typical meal could consist of plantains, black beans and rice, ropa vieja (shredded beef), Cuban bread, pork with onions, and tropical fruits.