Its main cities are Santa Clara (the capital), Remedios, Sagua La Grande, Camajuani, Caibarién, Ranchuelo, Placetas, and Manicaragua.

In early colonial Cuba, historical province Las Villas was center to cattle industry but by the 18th and 19th centuries it had shifted to sugar production with a large concentration of mills.

After Castro's revolution in the 1960s it still led in sugar production on the island, but in the late 80s and 90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and lack of support thereof, most of the already inefficient mills were closed down, some of them disassembled, while others became museums.

[4] Sugar, the commodity that the Cuban economy once relied upon, was primarily based in the plains in the north of the province, and several large mills provided employment to many people.

[citation needed] The northern coast of Villa Clara is dotted with numerous cays (part of the Sabana-Camaguey Archipelago), and there are many coral reefs, sandy beaches, and newly constructed touristic resorts.

The Cays are a capricious cluster of some 500 islands, strewn along a sea of varying shades of blues and greens off the northern coast of the central province of Villa Clara and close to the second largest coral barrier reef in the world.

The most precious jewels are Cayo Las Brujas, Cayo Ensenachos and Cayo Santa Maria, renowned for their immaculate landscape of incredible beauty, with sugary-white sand beaches and crystal-clear waters, fringed by autochthonous vegetation and connected to Caibarien, a small fishing town on the Cuban mainland, by a 48 km causeway stretching over the sea -accorded an international prize for its harmonious combination of nature and engineering in an area declared a World Biosphere Reserve- thus enabling visitors to access the cays directly from Santa Clara City, site of the international airport.

A site of legends, it is said that this island, maze of singular biodiversity, was once a haven for pirates and buccaneers ready to pounce on ship passing along Cuba's shores.

Built in San Francisco, California and launched in 1919, the ship evokes the presence of American writer Ernest Hemingway in the area.