Niquero is a municipality and town in the

Granma Province Granma is one of the provinces of Cuba. Its capital is Bayamo. Other towns include Manzanillo (a port on the Gulf of Guacanayabo) and Pilón. History The province takes its name from the yacht '' Granma'', used by Che Guevara and Fidel Castr ...

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 ...

. It is located in the coastal region of the province, bordering the

Gulf of Guacanayabo The Gulf of Guacanayabo () is a bay along the southern coast of Cuba, bordered by Granma and Las Tunas provinces. Overview The largest port on the bay is Manzanillo, and the gulf is bordered to the north-west by the Jardines de la Reina arch ...

Cape Cruz Cape Cruz, ( es, Cabo Cruz), is a cape that forms the western extremity of the Granma Province in southern Cuba. It extends into the Caribbean sea and marks the eastern border of the Gulf of Guacanayabo.Hernández 2001 Cape Cruz is located in the ...

(''Cabo Cruz''), the westernmost point of the province is located in this municipality.

History

During

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...

, Niquero was the site of the landing of '' Granma'', a yacht boarded by 82 members of the

26th of July Movement The 26th of July Movement ( es, Movimiento 26 de Julio; M-26-7) was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates its 26 July 1953 attack on the army barracks on San ...

, including

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...

Raúl Castro Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz (; ; born 3 June 1931) is a retired Cuban politician and general who served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the one-party communist state, from 2011 to 2021, succeedi ...

Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...

and

Camilo Cienfuegos Camilo Cienfuegos Gorriarán (; 6 February 1932 – 28 October 1959) was a Cuban revolutionary born in Havana. Along with Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Juan Almeida Bosque, and Raúl Castro, he was a member of the 1956 ''Granma (yacht), Granma'' ...

. On 2 December 1956 the yacht, departed from

Tuxpan Tuxpan (or Túxpam, fully Túxpam de Rodríguez Cano) is both a municipality and city located in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The population of the city was 78,523 and of the municipality was 134,394 inhabitants, according to the INEGI census o ...

, in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, landed in Los Cayuelos near the beach

Playa Las Coloradas Niquero is a municipality and town in the Granma Province of Cuba. It is located in the coastal region of the province, bordering the Gulf of Guacanayabo. Cape Cruz (''Cabo Cruz''), the westernmost point of the province is located in this municip ...

, few km in south of the town. The

Desembarco del Granma National Park Desembarco del Granma National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Desembarco del Granma) is a national park in south-western Cuba, stretching across the Niquero and Pilón municipalities in what is now Granma Province. The name of the park means "Landin ...

(i.e.: ''Landing of the Granma'' N. P.), located in south of the municipality, was named after the event.

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 Belic, Guanito, Jagua, La Marea, El Plátano, Sevilla Abajo, Cabo Cruz, Hondón, Marea de Belic, Alegría de Pío, Estacadero, La Ricardo, etc. Niquero is also the southernmost municipality in all of Cuba.

Demographics

In 2004, the municipality of Niquero had a population of 41,252. With a total area of , it has a population density of .

Transport

The town is crossed by the state highway "

Circuito Sur de Oriente The ''Circuito Sur de Oriente'' (CSO), meaning "Southern Circuit of the Orient", is a west-east highway connecting Bayamo to Santiago de Cuba, through Manzanillo, Niquero and the southern coastal side of eastern Cuba, below the Sierra Maestra m ...

" (CSO).

has a lighthouse named

Faro Vargas The Faro Vargas, also known as ''Faro de Cabo Cruz'', is a staffed lighthouse located on the southernmost part of Cape Cruz in Cuba. Construction of the 32 metre lighthouse started in 1862 and was finished in 1871. The lighthouse has a height of , ...

Twin towns

(

Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

)

References

External links

Populated places in Granma Province {{Cuba-geo-stub