CUBA - An Interesting Land

Cuba is an island in the Caribbean Sea. It is almost as big as all of the other Caribbean Islands combined. It is 745 miles from coast to coast, and is less than 90 miles from the Florida Keys. Cuba’s capital, Havana, is one of the oldest cities in the Americas. Christopher Columbus, an explorer, sailed there more than 500 years ago. The capital building was modeled after the capital building in Washington, D.C. It is smaller than most capital cities, but it is five times larger than the second largest city in Cuba. The population of Cuba is less than half of the population of Mexico City alone.

Cuba is known for its music, like the rumba, the mambo, and the cha cha cha. They have combined the Spanish guitar with the rhythms of the African drums. One type of Cuban music called son, or Cuban Country Music.

They grow lots of tobacco, sugarcane, and maize. They have lots of mangos, pineapples, coffee, and rice. They have been raided by pirates for hundreds of years, and the pirates left lots of sunken ships. They have lots of hurricanes and tornadoes. They have great theatres and monuments.

Communist Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959 and he made it a communist country. The Americans did not support communism, so for more than sixty years, people from the United States could not visit Cuba for vacations, only for work. Now, Americans are allowed to visit Cuba on vacations. Cuba is an interesting country.