The Internet Travel Guide "Getting to Know Cuba"

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Geography

Cuba is the largest of the Greater Antilles Islands and is located between North and South America. The island is situtated 180 km south of Florida, 140 km north of Jamaica, and 210 east of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and 77 km west of Haiti.

The island extends 1250 km east to west and is between 31 and 191 km wide. It includes four groups of islands: Los Colorados, Sabana-Camaguey, Jardins de la Reina and Los Canarreos. Alexander von Humboldt compared the form of the island to a crocodile and the Cuban national poet, Nicolas Guillen, described the island in one of his poems as a long, green lizard.

landscape

A quarter of the country is mountainous and the highest mountain chain, the Sierra Maestra, reaches an altitude of almost 2000 meters at the Pico Turquino, the highest peak in Cuba. The mountain areas are very important for the Cuban economy, because coffee or tobacco is usually cultivated at moderate altitudes, while the higher areas are used to mine heavy metals. More than 200 rivers, of which none is longer than 250 km, irrigate the land, turning it into a green paradise.

landscape

During the rainy season, even small rivers could provoke floods having no chance to flow off quickly. In order to stop the overflow and to preserve the precious commodity of drinking water, some large reservoirs have been built. In other regions, the masses of water are used for the cultivation of rice. Especially on the slightly steeper northern coast, the river mouths are very marshy and overgrown with mangrove forests.