Cienfuegos, CUBA

Cienfuegos is a city on the southern coast of Cuba, capital of the province of Cienfuegos. It is located about 250 km (155 miles) from Havana, and has a population of 150,000. The city is dubbed "La Perla del Sur".

Geography

Near the entrance to the Bahia de Cienfuegos (bahia meaning "bay") is Castillo de Jagua (full name Castillo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Jagua), a fortress erected in the 1745 for protection against Caribbean pirates.

Cienfuegos, one of the chief seaports of Cuba, is a center of the sugar trade, as well as coffee and tobacco. While sugarcane is the chief crop, local farmers grow coffee.

History

The area was called Cacicazgo de Jagua when the Spanish arrived here, and was settled by indigenous people. The city was settled by French immigrants from Bordeaux and Louisiana, led by Don Louis D'Clouet, on April 22 1819. Its original name was Fernardina de Jagua, in honor of Ferdinand VII of Spain. The settlement became a town (Spanish: Villa) in 1829, and a city in 1880. The city was subsequently named Cienfuegos, sharing the name with Cienfuegos, a capitán general (Spanish governor) in this time, in the island.

Cienfuegos literally translates to "Hundred fires".

The downtown contains 6 buildings from 1819-50, 327 buildings from 1851-1900, and 1188 buildings from the 20th century. There is no other place in the Caribbean which contains such a remarkable cluster of Neoclassical structures.

World Heritage Site

In 2005, UNESCO inscribed the Urban Historic Centre of Cienfuegos on the World Heritage List, citing Cienfuegos as the best extant example of the 19th-century early Spanish Enlightenment implementation in urban planning.