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The heart of the La Habana Province , Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. The population in was 2,, inhabitants, [ 7 ] [ 6 ] and its area is Havana was founded by the Spanish in the 16th century. It served as a springboard for the Spanish conquest of the Americas , becoming a stopping point for Spanish galleons returning to Spain.
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Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of capital in Contemporary Havana can essentially be described as three cities in one: Old Havana , Vedado and the newer suburban districts. The Almendares River traverses the city from south to north, entering the Straits of Florida a few miles west of the bay. Habana was the name of the local people group. It has been theorized that the name derived from Habaguanex , who was a chief of the Native American tribe.
His name is Taíno , an Arawakan language , but nothing else is known. Usage of the word Havana in literature understandably peaked during the Spanish—American War , but it also represents a type of cigar, a color, and a type of rabbit as well as the city. Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded Havana in , on the southern coast of the island, near the present town of Surgidero de Batabanó on the banks of the Mayabeque River close to Playa Mayabeque.
However, all attempts to found a city on Cuba's south coast failed; an early map of Cuba drawn in places the town at the mouth of the river. Between and the Spanish established two settlements on the north coast, one of them in La Chorrera , around the site of the Torreón de la Chorrera , what eventually became the neighborhoods of Vedado and Miramar, next to the mouth of the Almendares River.
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The town that became Havana originated adjacent to what was then called Puerto de Carenas literally, " Careening Port" , in The quality of this natural bay, which now hosts Havana's harbor, warranted this change of location. The name combines San Cristóbal , patron saint of Havana. Shortly after the founding of Cuba's first cities, the island served as little more than a base for the Conquista of other lands.
Havana began as a trading port, and suffered regular attacks by buccaneers , pirates, and French corsairs. The first attack and resultant burning of the city was by the French corsair Jacques de Sores in Such attacks convinced the Spanish Crown to fund the construction of the first fortresses in the main cities — not only to counteract the pirates and corsairs, but also to exert more control over commerce with the West Indies, and to limit the extensive contrabando black market that had arisen due to the trade restrictions imposed by the Casa de Contratación of Seville the crown-controlled trading house that held a monopoly on New World trade.
Havana Maps
Ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, to be taken by the fleet to Spain. The thousands of ships gathered in the city's bay also fueled Havana's agriculture and manufacture, since they had to be supplied with food, water, and other products needed to traverse the ocean. In the meantime, efforts to build or improve the defensive infrastructures of the city continued.
Havana expanded greatly in the 17th century. New buildings were constructed from the most abundant materials of the island, mainly wood, combining various Iberian architectural styles, as well as borrowing profusely from Canarian characteristics. During this period the city also built civic monuments and religious constructions.
Havana Maps
In a fatal epidemic, brought from Cartagena in Colombia, affected a third of the population of Havana. In , the works for the City Walls were started, as part of the fortification efforts. They would be completed by By the middle of the 18th century Havana had more than seventy thousand inhabitants, and was the third-largest city in the Americas, ranking behind Lima and Mexico City but ahead of Boston and New York City.
During the 18th century Havana was the most important of the Spanish ports because it had facilities where ships could be refitted and, by , it had become Spain's largest and most active shipyard and only drydock in the New World.
The city was captured by the British during the Seven Years' War. The episode began on 6 June , when at dawn, a British fleet, comprising more than 50 ships and a combined force of over 11, men of the Royal Navy and Army, sailed into Cuban waters and made an amphibious landing east of Havana. Less than a year after Havana was seized, the Peace of Paris was signed by the three warring powers thus ending the Seven Years' War.
The treaty gave Britain Florida in exchange for the return of the city of Havana on to Spain. After regaining the city, the Spanish transformed Havana into the most heavily fortified city in the Americas like Cartagena, Colombia a city that under the leadership of Blas de Lezo defeated a British invasion of 30, sailors.