Cuba is the principal island, surrounded by four main archipelagos: the Colorados, the Sabana-Camagüey, the Jardines de la Reina and the Canarreos.

Cuba lies west of the North Atlantic Ocean, east of the Gulf of Mexico, south of the Straits of Florida, northwest of the Windward Passage, and northeast of the Yucatán Channel.

At the southeastern end is the Sierra Maestra, a range of steep mountains whose highest point is the Pico Turquino at 1,974 metres (6,476 ft).

Better-known smaller towns include Baracoa, which was the first Spanish settlement on Cuba, Trinidad, a UNESCO world heritage site, and Bayamo.

The southern part is bounded by the Windward Passage and the Cayman Trench, while the southwest lies in the Caribbean Sea.

The northeastern shore is lined by the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago, which includes Jardines del Rey and is composed of approximately 2,517 cays and islands.

Download coordinates as: Extreme points in Cuba are: Natural resources include cobalt, nickel, iron ore, copper, salt, timber, silica, oil and petroleum.

At one time the whole island was covered with forests, and there are still many cedar (Cedrela odorata), chechem (Metopium brownei), mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni), and other valuable trees.

[16] Sherritt International, a Canadian energy company, operates a large nickel mining facility in Moa, Cuba.

"[17] Offshore exploration in the North Cuba Basin had revealed the possibility of an additional 4.6 billion barrels (730,000,000 m3) of technically recoverable crude oil, 0.9 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

[17] As of 2011, Cuba had six offshore petroleum development projects with foreign oil companies Petrovietnam (Vietnam), Petronas (Malaysia), PDVSA (Venezuela), Sonangol (Angola), ONGC (India), Repsol (Spain), and Statoil (Norway).

[17] Sugarcane was historically the most important part of the Cuban economy,[18] and large areas are still dedicated to its cultivation; in 2018, Cuba produced an estimated 1.1–1.3 million tonnes of raw sugar.