Mariel is a municipality and town in the

Artemisa Province Artemisa Province is one of the two new provinces created from the former La Habana Province, whose creation was approved by the Cuban National Assembly on August 1, 2010, the other being Mayabeque Province. The new provinces came into existen ...

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. It is located approximately west of the city of

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Mariel Bay. The villages of La Boca, Henequen, Mojica, Quiebra Hacha, and Cabañas are the major settlements composing the municipality of Mariel.

History

, born in

Key West Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida, at the southern end of the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it con ...

on October 11, 1887, of Cuban parents exiled during the struggle for Cuban's independence, was the first man to fly over the sea from Key West,

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

to El Mariel, Cuba, on May 19, 1913. The port of Mariel is the nearest port to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. In 1980, some 125,000 Cubans left Mariel and went to the United States in what is known as the

Mariel boatlift The Mariel boatlift () was a mass emigration of Cubans who traveled from Cuba's Mariel Harbor to the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980. The term "" is used to refer to these refugees in both Spanish and English. While the ex ...

. While many reached the US, several died while traveling through the ocean. Those involved became known as " Marielitos".

Demographics

In 2022, the municipality of Mariel had a population of 44,461. With a total area of , it has a population density of .

Transport

Overview

On the east side of the bay are a port, cement works and a power station, which contribute to very high levels of environmental contamination. On the west side of the bay is a former submarine base, later designated as a

free trade zone A free-trade zone (FTZ) is a class of special economic zone. It is a geographic area where goods may be imported, stored, handled, manufactured, or reconfigured and re- exported under specific customs regulation and generally not subject t ...

New Port of Mariel Development Project

Following an agreement reached in 2009 between the governments of Brazil and Cuba, the Brazilian engineering firm Grupo

Odebrecht Odebrecht S.A. (), officially known as Novonor, is a Brazilian conglomerate, headquartered in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, consisting of diversified businesses in the fields of engineering, construction, chemicals and petrochemicals. The company w ...

built a new port, including a major container terminal, in partnership with the Cuban company "Zona de Desarrollo Integral de Mariel", a subsidiary of the Cuban military controlled Almacenes Universal S.A. This project received an agreement from the Brazilian government to subsidize it up to US$800 million, out of which $300 million would have been already appropriated. The port has been dredged to , enabling it to be used by Super-Panamax vessels. Various Cuban and international media (such as Reuters) report the future Port of Mariel would be designed to have an initial of berth length, enabling it to receive simultaneously two large ocean vessels. Plans through 2022 call for Mariel to house logistics facilities for offshore oil exploration and development, a new container terminal, general cargo, bulk and refrigerated handling and storage facilities as well as a Special Economic Development Zone for light manufacturing and storage. The new Mariel Port can handle deeper vessels than Havana Bay, where a tunnel under the channel restricts depths to . The Mariel container terminal would have an annual capacity of 850,000 to 1 million containers, compared with Havana's 350,000. These developments should enable Mariel to accommodate the very large container ships which will transit from Asia through the Panama Canal once the enlargement of the latter is completed in the summer of 2014. Early June 2011 it was announced that the contract for the operation of the future new Port of Mariel container terminal had been awarded by the Cuban government to

PSA International PSA International Pte. Ltd., formerly the Port of Singapore Authority, is a global port operator and supply chain company. One of the largest port operators in the world, PSA's portfolio comprises over 70 deepsea, rail, and inland terminals. The ...

, a leading global Singaporean port operator. Earlier on, it had been reported that the Emirati operator

DP World DP World is a multinational logistics company based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It specialises in cargo logistics, port terminal operations, maritime services and free trade zones. Formed in 2005 by the merger of Dubai Ports Authority and ...

(Dubai Ports World) was the leading contender for this contract. Mariel is ideally situated to handle U.S. cargoes when the American trade embargo is eventually lifted, and will receive U.S. food exports already flowing into the country under a 2000 amendment to the US sanctions. If these technical and political developments occur, and if the Mariel container terminal are operationally and financially competitive, Mariel could become one of the major hub ports of the Caribbean region, competing against the existing hub ports of

Freeport, Bahamas Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone on the island of Grand Bahama in the northwest part of The Bahamas. In 1955, Wallace Groves, a Virginian financier with lumber interests in Grand Bahama, was granted of pineyard with substant ...

;

Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long spit (landform), sand spit which connects the town of Por ...

; Multimodal Caucedo Port, Dominican Republic;

Port of Spain Port of Spain ( ; Trinidadian and Tobagonian English, Trinidadian English: ''Port ah Spain'' ) is the capital and chief port of Trinidad and Tobago. With a municipal population of 49,867 (2017), an urban population of 81,142 and a transient dail ...

, Trinidad and Tobago; and

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

, which receive very large container ships with cargo containers originating or bound to multiple regional origins and destinations, including US ports. The new port, with improved highway, railroad, and communications infrastructure, began operating in January 2014. Brazilian President

Dilma Rousseff Dilma Vana Rousseff (; born 14 December 1947) is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the only woman to have held the ...

accompanied

Raúl Castro Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz ( ; ; born 3 June 1931) is a Cuban retired politician and general who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the One-par ...

to inaugurate the first completed section of the new container terminal. Cuba created the

special economic zone A special economic zone (SEZ) is an area in which the business and trade laws are different from the rest of the country. SEZs are located within a country's national borders, and their aims include increasing trade balance, employment, increas ...

in 2014 with the goal of using tax breaks and customs breaks to attract foreign investment. As of late 2018, 43 applications from foreign businesses had been approved and 17 foreign companies were operating in the zone. As of 2023, Havana Energy and French utility Hive are building utility-scale solar energy plants in the zone. The special development zone is exempt from normal Cuban economic legislation. Foreign investors in the zone must contribute 0.5% of their income to the SDZ development and maintenance fund and pay a 1% sales and service tax for local transactions. Cuban enterprises which supply domestic products and services to foreign businesses operating in the zone are permitted to retain 50% of their profits.

Notable Person

* Mariel Hemingway was named after this town.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Populated places in Artemisa Province Port cities and towns in Cuba