50 Fun Facts About Havana

Havana is the capital of which country?

It is also the largest city in the country and the second-largest metropolitan area in the whole Caribbean.

Havana overtook which city to become Cuba's capital in 1552?

The deep, sheltered harbour was the deciding advantage, and it made Havana the gathering point for treasure galleons heading home to Spain.

What is the full Spanish name given to the town that became Havana?

Saint Christopher remains the city's patron saint and its cathedral is dedicated to him.

The name 'Habana' is thought to come from Habaguanex, who was what?

Almost nothing else is known about him, which has kept the etymology a theory rather than a fact.

Why is the city spelled with a 'v' in English but a 'b' in Spanish?

In most Spanish dialects the 'b' and 'v' sounds merge, so English writers heard and wrote a 'v'.

Where did Diego Velázquez first found Havana in 1514?

The low, swampy ground near the Mayabeque River doomed the settlement, and every Spanish attempt to build there failed.

Which French corsair carried out the first attack that burned Havana, in 1555?

The raid convinced the Spanish Crown to pay for the first fortresses in its main Caribbean cities.

Which king granted Havana the title of City in 1592?

The Crown later dubbed it the 'Key to the New World and Rampart of the West Indies'.

A 1649 epidemic that killed a third of Havana's population was which disease?

It arrived on ships from Cartagena, in present-day Colombia.

By the mid-18th century Havana ranked third in the Americas by population, behind which pair?

With more than 70,000 residents it was bigger than Boston and New York, and by 1740 it held the only drydock in the New World.

Which power captured Havana in a 1762 siege during the Seven Years' War?

More than 50 ships and 11,000 men landed east of the city, and the occupiers immediately opened Havana to trade with their colonies.

Under the 1763 Treaty of Paris, Spain got Havana back in exchange for what?

Spain then made Havana the most heavily fortified city in the Americas, starting work on the huge La Cabaña fortress.

Whose remains were moved to Havana in 1796 and stayed until 1898?

They were shipped from Santo Domingo, then on to Seville Cathedral after Spain lost Cuba.

In the 19th century Havana earned which nickname?

Booming trade with North America paid for theatres and neoclassical mansions.

Cuba's first railroad, built from Havana in 1837, made it which country in the world to have one?

The 51 km line to Bejucal hauled sugar, and it beat Spain itself: Cuba was the first Spanish-speaking country with a railway.

The sinking of which US battleship in Havana Harbor triggered the Spanish–American War?

Spain gave up Cuba on 12 August 1898, ending its presence in the Americas.

Havana became the capital of the independent Republic of Cuba in which year?

Its first president, Tomás Estrada Palma, was inaugurated in the city.

Which Confederate Secretary of State fled to Havana after the American Civil War?

Many exiles stayed until Andrew Johnson's amnesty in 1868; slavery itself remained legal in Cuba until 1886.

Old Havana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?

The area is now the focus of a decades-long restoration led by city historian Eusebio Leal Spengler.

How many municipalities is Havana divided into?

Those boroughs are further split into 105 consejos populares, or wards.

Which river crosses Havana from south to north before reaching the sea a few miles west of the bay?

The early La Chorrera settlement sat by its mouth and grew into Vedado and Miramar.

Havana's climate is classed under Köppen as which type?

The trade winds keep it tempered, and the temperature seldom drops below 10 °C.

What rare disaster struck eastern Havana in January 2019?

It was the first F4 or EF4 twister in Cuba since 1940, wrecking at least 90 homes.

Which Havana neighbourhood is the city's financial district and home to the University of Havana?

It was built up between 1930 and 1960 with high-rise hotels and casinos aimed at American tourists.

The University of Havana was established in which year?

It was long regarded as a leading institution in the Western Hemisphere and was nationalised soon after the revolution.

Havana's international airport is named after which figure?

It sits about 11 km south of the centre in Boyeros and is the hub of Cubana de Aviación.

What was the Havana Hilton, opened in 1958, famous for during 1959?

Built for $24 million under Batista, it is now the Hotel Tryp Habana Libre.

The FOCSA Building of 1956 held which world record when completed?

The 35-storey block was designed as a city within a city, with 400 flats, a school and a rooftop restaurant.

The Bacardi Building, finished in 1930, is a celebrated example of which style?

It was nationalised in the early 1960s and restored by an Italian firm in 2001.

The Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón, built in 1876, holds roughly how many tombs?

It is one of the most famous cemeteries in Latin America and functions as an open-air museum.

The Havana team Industriales plays which sport?

Admission to games at the Estadio Latinoamericano is generally free.

Havana hosted the Pan American Games in which year?

The stadiums were built in the sparsely populated eastern suburbs; the city later bid for the 2008 and 2012 Olympics but was not shortlisted.

Cuba's CMQ made it the second country with a national TV network, after which country?

Cuba was the first Latin American country with television, running experimental broadcasts in 1946.

The Havana Film Festival, founded in 1979, focuses on filmmakers from where?

More than 600 directors answered its first call, and it still runs every December.

How long is the Malecón, Havana's seaside esplanade?

It runs from the harbour mouth in Old Havana to the mouth of the Almendares, and hosted the Cuban Grand Prix in 1957 and 1958.

Construction of the Malecón began in 1901 while Havana was under whose control?

Its main job was to shield the city from waves whipped up by cold fronts against the buildings on San Lázaro.

Which president commissioned El Capitolio, built from 1926 to 1929?

It took over 5,000 workers and around 17 million dollars, and its dome was the highest point in Havana until 1956.

What is embedded in the floor of El Capitolio's main hall to mark Cuba's Kilometre Zero?

The original 25-carat stone, said to have belonged to Tsar Nicholas II, was stolen in 1946 and mysteriously returned to the president in 1947.

El Capitolio's Statue of the Republic is the third-largest indoor statue after the Buddha of Nara and which other?

Sculptor Angelo Zanelli cast the bronze figure in Rome in three pieces and it was covered in 22-carat gold leaf.

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba hosted a 1946 mob summit run by Meyer Lansky and which other gangster?

Francis Ford Coppola dramatised the conference in The Godfather Part II.

Which New York firm designed the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, opened in 1930?

Its two-Greek-cross layout gives most rooms a sea view; in 1933 it was the site of a bloody siege between rival army factions.

Ernest Hemingway's Havana home, Finca Vigía, was bought in 1940 for how much?

Martha Gellhorn found it because she refused to live in his small room at the Hotel Ambos Mundos; he paid with early royalties from For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea at Finca Vigía about a fisherman from which nearby town?

He left Cuba for good in July 1960 after presenting a fishing trophy to Fidel Castro that summer.

Which American guitarist produced the 1997 Buena Vista Social Club album?

The group took its name from a 1940s members' club in Havana's Buenavista quarter; Wim Wenders' documentary followed in 1999.

Havana Club rum, created in 1934, was originally produced in which Cuban town?

After nationalisation, Pernod Ricard and the Cuban state now sell it worldwide, while Bacardi makes a rival Havana Club in Puerto Rico for the US market.

Camila Cabello's hit 'Havana' features which rapper?

It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in January 2018 after a 23-week climb, and became the IFPI's best-selling digital single of 2018.

The town that became Havana grew up in 1519 beside a harbour known then by what name?

The name means 'Careening Port'; the excellent bay is what drew the settlement from its first south-coast site.

In which year were Havana's city walls knocked down so the city could expand?

The same year saw the merger of the city's horsecar operators; slavery in Cuba remained legal until 1886.

The Hershey Electric Railway, built in 1917, links Casablanca across the harbour with Hershey and which city?

It is Havana's surviving interurban line; the city's tram system, electrified in 1900, closed in 1952.

Havana's coat of arms shows three castles. Besides the Morro and Punta castles, which is the third?

A key on the arms symbolises Havana as the gateway to the New World.