Provinces of Cuba

Administratively, Cuba is divided into 15 provinces and a special municipality that is not included in any province. The last modification was approved in August 2010 (by the Cuban National Assembly), splitting Havana province into two new provinces: Artemisa (which incorporates the three eastern municipalities of the neighbour Pinar del Río) and Mayabeque. The new provinces started functioning from January 1, 2011. Havana City Province (Ciudad de La Habana) recovered its original name: La Habana (Havana in English).

Provinces of Cuba Provincias de Cuba (Spanish)
Category	Unitary state
Location	Republic of Cuba
Number	15 Provinces 1 Special Municipality
Populations	84,263 (Isla de la Juventud) – 2,154,454 (La Habana)
Areas	281.18 square miles (728.3 km^2) (Isla de la Juventud) – 5,951.31 square miles (15,413.8 km^2) (Camagüey Province)
Government	Single Party Government
Subdivisions	Municipality

List of provinces

From west to east, Cuba's provinces are:

1. Pinar del Río
2. Artemisa
3. La Habana
4. Mayabeque
5. Matanzas
6. Cienfuegos
7. Villa Clara
8. Sancti Spíritus
9. Ciego de Ávila
10. Camagüey
11. Las Tunas
12. Granma
13. Holguín
14. Santiago de Cuba
15. Guantánamo
16. Isla de la Juventud ("special municipality")

History

Cuban Provinces 1879 to 1976

The provinces were created in 1879 by the Spanish colonial government. From 1879 to 1976, Cuba was divided into 6 provinces, which maintained with little changes the same boundaries and capital cities, although with modifications in official names. These "historical" provinces are the following (from west to east):

1. Pinar del Río
2. La Habana, included the city of Havana, current Mayabeque, some municipalities of current Artemisa Province (prior to 1970: 5 municipalities; from 1970 to 2011, 8 municipalities, including Artemisa city itself). Isla de Pinos ("Isle of Pines"), known as Isla de la Juventud ("Island of Youth") since the 1970s, was considered a "special municipality" in the Province of La Habana.
3. Matanzas
4. Las Villas (before 1940 named "Santa Clara"), contained the present-day provinces of Cienfuegos, Villa Clara, Sancti Spíritus, and Southern Matanzas Province.
5. Camagüey (before 1899 named "Puerto Príncipe"), contained the present-day provinces of Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila, as well as two municipalities of current Las Tunas Province (prior to 1970).
6. Oriente (before 1905 named "Santiago de Cuba"), contained the present-day provinces of Las Tunas, Granma, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo

Demographics

Pop. = Population. Source: Cuba census 2002 [1]

Province	Capital	Pop. (2012)	Pop. (%)	Area (km²)	Area (%)	Density
Camagüey	Camagüey	768,311	7.02	15,386.16	13.2	50.22
Ciego de Ávila	Ciego de Ávila	424,750	3.68	6,971.64	5.6	60.70
Cienfuegos	Cienfuegos	400,768	3.54	4,188.61	3.9	94.54
La Habana	La Habana (Havana)	2,154,454	19.70	728.26	0.7	3,053.49
Granma	Bayamo	830,645	7.36	8,374.24	7.9	98.20
Guantánamo	Guantánamo	506,369	4.54	6,167.97	6.0	82.22
Holguín	Holguín	1,027,683	9.14	9,215.72	8.5	109.90
Isla de la Juventud	Nueva Gerona	84,263	0.77	2,419.27	2.1	35.78
Artemisa	Artemisa	487,339	4.49	4,003.24	3.75	125.5
Las Tunas	Las Tunas	525,729	4.70	6,592.66	6.0	79.77
Matanzas	Matanzas	679,314	6.00	11,791.82	10.0	56.80
Mayabeque	San José de las Lajas	371,198	3.41	3,743.81	3.49	102.2
Pinar del Río	Pinar del Río	585,452	5.32	8,883.74	8.32	67.00
Sancti Spíritus	Sancti Spíritus	462,114	4.12	6,777.28	6.3	68.33
Santiago de Cuba	Santiago de Cuba	1,053,837	9.27	6,227.78	5.9	168.32
Villa Clara	Santa Clara	783,708	7.31	8,441.81	7.6	97.17
Cuba	La Habana	11,163,934		109,884.01		101.72

Presidents of the People's Power Provincial Assemblies

Presidents of the Provincial Assemblies of People's Power in each province in the country (local governments).[2]

Province	President of the Provincial Assembly
Camagüey	Jesús Arturo García Collazo
Ciego de Ávila	Agustín Gregorio Arza Pascual
Cienfuegos	Rolando Díaz González
La Habana	Marta Hernández Romero
Granma	Jesús Antonio Infante López
Guantánamo	Luis Fernando Navarro Fernández
Holguín	Alberto Olivera Fis
Isla de la Juventud	Roberto Unger Pérez
Mayabeque	Armando Cuellar Domínguez
Artemisa	Raúl Rodríguez Cartaya
Las Tunas	Víctor Luis Rodríguez Carballosa
Matanzas	Nilo Tomás Díaz Fundora
Pinar del Río	Vidal Pérez Baños
Sancti Spíritus	Fidel Pérez Luzbert
Santiago de Cuba	Rolando Yero García
Villa Clara	Alexander Rodriguez Rosada

See also

• Politics of Cuba
• Demographics of Cuba
• List of places in Cuba
• Municipalities of Cuba
• List of Caribbean First-level Subdivisions by Total Area
• ISO 3166-2:CU

References

1. Cuba Census 2002 Archived 2008-01-17 at the Wayback Machine Population table
2. "Presidentes de las Asambleas Provinciales del Poder Popular en cada provincia" (in Spanish). Parlamento Cubano. Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. Retrieved 2007-02-10.

External links

• Cuba at GeoHive
• "Provinces of Cuba". Statoids.