Banes is a municipality and city in the
Holguín Province
Holguín () is one of the provinces of Cuba, the third most populous after Havana and Santiago de Cuba. It lies in the southeast of the country. Its major cities include Holguín (the capital), Banes, Antilla, Mayarí, and Moa.
The province ha ...
of
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
. Banes was an important area for the native
Taino people before the conquest by
Columbus
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to:
* Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer
* Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio
Columbus may also refer to:
Places ...
.
The town of Banes is visited by tourists from
Guardalavaca as it is the nearest town to the
resort
A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that tries to provide most of a vacationer's wants, such as food, drink, swimming, lodging, sports, entertainment, and shopping, on the premises. The term ''resort ...
, and both are in the municipality of Banes. A museum featuring the Taino culture is situated halfway between both towns.
History
The name comes from the inhabitants
Taino language word ''Bani'', meaning "valley".
Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike () was a powerful tropical cyclone that swept through portions of the Greater Antilles and Northern America in September 2008, wreaking havoc on infrastructure and agriculture, particularly in Cuba and Texas. Ike took a sim ...
made landfall here as a Category 4 hurricane on the evening of September 7, 2008, causing great losses of property.
Geography
The municipality is divided into the
barrio
''Barrio'' () is a Spanish language, Spanish word that means "Quarter (urban subdivision), quarter" or "neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residenti ...
s of Barrio Amarillo, Angeles, Berros, Cañadón, Durruthy, Este, Flores, Macabi, Mulas, Nuevo Banes, Oeste, Retrete, Río Seco,
Samá (includes
Guardalavaca), Marcané, Veguitas and Yaguajay.
Demographics
In 2004, the municipality of Banes had a population of 81,274.
With a total area of ,
it has a population density of .
Personalities
*
Fulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...
(1901–1973), politician
*
Victor Brown (?–2016), musician
*
Rafael Díaz-Balart
Rafael Lincoln Díaz-Balart y Gutiérrez (January 17, 1926 – May 6, 2005) was a Cuban politician. Díaz-Balart served as Majority Leader of the Cuban House of Representatives and Deputy Secretary of Interior (1952-1954) during the presid ...
(1926–2005), politician
*
Rafael José Díaz-Balart
Rafael José Díaz-Balart (c. 1899 – 1985), was a Cuban politician and mayor of the town of Banes. With his wife América Gutiérrez, he was the father of Rafael Díaz-Balart and progenitor of the Díaz-Balart family, an American political fami ...
(1899–1985), politician
*
Waldo Díaz-Balart
Waldo Díaz-Balart y Gutiérrez (born February 10, 1931) is a Cuban painter and sculptor currently living in Madrid, Spain.
Biography
Born in Banes, Cuba, Díaz-Balart is the son of the mayor of Banes, Rafael José Díaz-Balart. Díaz-Balart st ...
(b. 1931), painter
*
Julio González (1920–1991), baseball player
*
Peruchín
Pedro Nolasco Jústiz Rodríguez, better known as Peruchín (January 31, 1913 – December 24, 1977), was a Cuban pianist specializing in jazz-influenced Cuban popular music. He was an important figure in the 1950s descarga (jam session) scene in ...
(1913–1977), pianist
*
Gilberto Zaldívar Juan Gilberto Zaldívar (March 28, 1934 – October 6, 2009) was the Cuban-born American co-founder of the Repertorio Español, a Spanish language theater company based in New York City that presents classic Spanish plays, modern works from Hi ...
(1934–2009), Cuban-American theatre director
See also
*
Municipalities of Cuba
The Provinces of Cuba, provinces of Cuba are divided into 168 municipality, municipalities or ''municipios''. They were defined by Cuban Law Number 1304 of July 3, 1976Fifth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, Vo ...
*
List of cities in Cuba
This is a list of cities in Cuba with at least 20,000 inhabitants, listed in descending order. Population data refers to city proper and not to the whole municipality, because they include large rural areas with several villages. All figu ...
References
External links
Cities in Cuba
Populated places in Holguín Province
{{Cuba-geo-stub