[2] According to the 2012 census, the population density at that time was 101 inhabitants per square kilometer, and the overall life expectancy in Cuba was 78.0 years.

This drop was due to low fertility and emigration, as during this time (fiscal years 2003 to 2012), 42,028 Cubans received legal permanent residence in the United States.

[5] Consequently, Cuba is also the oldest country in the Americas in terms of median age,[6] due to a high amount of emigration by younger Cubans to the U.S.[7] In the last few years before the end of the wet feet, dry feet policy on January 12, 2017, the number of Cubans moving to the United States significantly outnumbered the natural increase during those years.

[15] The ancestry of Cubans comes from many sources: During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Spanish immigrants from Canary Islands, Catalonia, Andalusia, Galicia, and Asturias emigrated to Cuba.

[16] An autosomal study from 2014 has found out the genetic average ancestry in Cuba to be 72% European, 20% African and 8% Native American with different proportions depending on the self-reported ancestry (White, Mulatto or Mestizo, and Black):[17] A 1995 study done on the population of Pinar del Rio, found that 50% of the Mt-DNA lineages (female lineages) could be traced back to Europeans, 46% to Africans and 4% to Native Americans.

Much of the typical Cuban replacements for standard Spanish vocabulary stems from Canarian lexicon.

For example, guagua (bus) differs from standard Spanish autobús the former originated in the Canaries and is an onomatopoeia stemming from the sound of a Klaxon horn (wah-wah!).

Catholicism, which was brought to the island by Spanish colonialists at the beginning of the 16th century, is the most prevalent professed faith.

Since the Fourth Cuban Communist Party Congress in 1991, restrictions have been eased and, according to the National Catholic Observer, direct challenges by state institutions to the right to religion have all but disappeared,[24] though the Church still faces restrictions of written and electronic communication, and can only accept donations from state-approved funding sources.

In January 1998, Pope John Paul II paid a historic visit to the island, invited by the Cuban government and Catholic Church.

Pentecostalism has grown rapidly in recent years, and the Assemblies of God alone claims a membership of over 167 000 people.

Cuba has small communities of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and members of the Baháʼí Faith.