Geography of Cuba
Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea. Cuba has an official area of. Its area is including coastal and territorial waters. This makes it the 8th largest island country in the world. The main island has of coastline and of land borders—all figures including the United States territory at Guantánamo Bay, where the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located.
Cuba lies west of the North Atlantic Ocean, east of the Gulf of Mexico, south of the Straits of Florida, northwest of the Windward Passage, and northeast of the Yucatán Channel. The main island makes up most of the land area.
The island is long and across its widest points and across its narrowest points. The largest island outside the main island is the Isla de la Juventud in the southwest, with an area of.
Cuba is an archipelago of islands located in the Caribbean Sea, with the geographic coordinates 21°3N, 80°00W. Cuba is the principal island, which is surrounded by four main groups of islands. These are the Colorados, the Sabana-Camagüey, the Jardines de la Reina and the Canarreos. The main island of Cuba constitutes most of the nation's land area or and is the seventeenth-largest island in the world by land area. The second largest island in Cuba is the Isla de la Juventud in the southwest, with an area of. Cuba has a total land area of.
The main island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains. At the southeastern end is the Sierra Maestra, a range of steep mountains whose highest point is the Pico Real del Turquino at.
Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. Better known smaller towns include Baracoa which was the first Spanish settlement on Cuba, Trinidad, a UNESCO world heritage site, and Bayamo.
Physical geography
Cuba is located west of Haiti across the Windward Passage, south of the Bahamas, south of Florida, east of Mexico, and north of Jamaica. It was made in three stages.Cuba is the largest country by land area in the Caribbean. Its main island is the seventeenth-largest island in the world by land area. The island rises between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean. It is bordered on the north by the Straits of Florida, on the northeast by Nicholas Channel and the Old Bahama Channel. The southern part is bounded by the Windward Passage and the Cayman Trench, while the southwest lies in the Caribbean Sea. To the west, it reaches to the Yucatán Channel, and the northwest is open to the Gulf of Mexico.
More than 4,000 islands and cays are found in the surrounding sea and bays. The southern coast includes such archipelagos as Jardines de la Reina and the Canarreos. The northeastern shore is lined by the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago, which includes Jardines del Rey and is composed of approximately 2,517 cays and islands. The Colorados Archipelago is developed on the north-western coast.
Terrain
Terrain is mostly flat to rolling plains, with rugged hills and mountains in the southeast. The lowest point is the Caribbean Sea at 0 m and the highest point is Pico Turquino at, part of the Sierra Maestra mountain range, located in the southeast of the island.Other mountain ranges are Sierra Cristal in the southeast, Escambray Mountains in the center of the island, and Sierra del Rosario in the northwest. White sand beaches, as well as mangroves and marshes can be found in the coastal area. The largest is the Zapata Swamp, with over.
Cuba has negligible inland water area. The largest natural water mirror is Laguna de Leche at, while the man-made Zaza Reservoir, at, is the largest inland water surface by area in the country.
Maritime claims
Cuba makes maritime claims that include a territorial sea of and an exclusive economic zone of with.Extreme points
Extreme points in Cuba are:| Point | Name | Location | Remarks |
| North | Punta Hicacos | On Hicacos Peninsula | |
| North | Cayo Cruz del Padre | Part of Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago | |
| East | Punta Maisie | Near Maisí | |
| West | Cape San Antonio | On Guanahacabibes Peninsula | |
| South | Cape Cruz | Near Niquero | |
| Highest point | Pico Turquino | Part of Sierra Maestra, | |
| Lowest point | sea level | Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean | |
| Largest city | Havana | National capital, population 2,130,431 | |
| Oldest city | Baracoa | Founded in 1511 |
Natural resources
s include cobalt, nickel, iron ore, copper, salt, timber, silica, oil and petroleum. At one time, the whole island was covered with forests and there are still many cedar, chechem, mahogany, and other valuable trees. Large areas were cleared to grow more sugarcane, and so few trees remained that timber had to be imported.The most important Cuban mineral economic resource is nickel. Cuba has the second largest nickel reserves in the world after Russia. Sherritt International, a Canadian energy company, operates a large nickel mining facility in Moa, Cuba. Another leading mineral resource is cobalt, a byproduct of nickel mining operations. Cuba ranks as the fifth largest producer of refined cobalt in the world.
Cuba has historically been dependent on oil imports. As of 2011, Cuba had proven reserves of a mere of crude oil and 2.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and mostly used oil for power generation. In 2010, Cuba produced 51,000 barrels of crude oil a day in 2010 in onshore or shallow near-shore development, "mostly heavy, sour crude that requires advanced refining capacity to process." Offshore exploration in the North Cuba Basin had revealed the possibility of an additional of technically recoverable crude oil, 0.9 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. As of 2011, Cuba had six offshore petroleum development projects with foreign oil companies Petrovietnam, Petronas, PDVSA, Sonangol, ONGC, Repsol, and Statoil.
Sugarcane was historically the most important part of the Cuban economy, and is still grown on large areas; in 2018, Cuba produced an estimated 1.1-1.3 million tonnes of raw sugar. The importance of the sugar harvest has declined, with tourism, tobacco, nickel, and pharmaceuticals surpassing sugar in economic importance.
Extensive irrigation systems are developed in the south of Sancti Spíritus Province. Tobacco, used for some of the world's cigars, is grown especially in the Pinar del Río Province.
Climate
Most of Cuba has a tropical savanna climate according to the Köppen Climate classification, though some areas also have a tropical monsoon climate and a tropical rainforest climate, with a hot semi-arid climate in the Guantánamo Bay area. In most areas, the dry season lasts from November to April and the rainy season from May to October.The climate is tropical, though moderated by trade winds. In general, there is a drier season from November to April, and a rainier season from May to October. The average temperature is in January and in July.
Cuba lies in the path of hurricanes, and these destructive storms are most common in September and October. Tornadoes are somewhat rare in Cuba, however, on the evening of January 27, 2019, a very rare strong F4 tornado struck the eastern side of Havana, Cuba's capital city. The tornado caused extensive damage, destroying at least 90 homes, killing four people and injuring 195. By February 4, the death toll had increased to six, with 11 people still in critical condition.