Regla () is one of the 15 municipalities or boroughs (''

municipio ' (, ) and ' () are country subdivisions in Italy and several Hispanophone and Lusophone nations, respectively. They are often translated as "municipality". In the English language, a municipality often is defined as relating to a single city or t ...

s'' in Spanish) in the city of

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

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 comprises the town of Regla, located at the bottom of

Havana Bay Havana Harbor is the port of Havana, the capital of Cuba, and it is the main port in Cuba (not including Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a territory on lease by the United States). Other port cities in Cuba include Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Manzanillo ...

in a former aborigine settlement named ''Guaicanamar'', Loma Modelo in a peninsula dividing Marimelena from Guasabacoa inlets, and the village of

Casablanca Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...

located at the entry of the Havana Bay.

Overview

The town is a commercial and

industrial suburb An industrial suburb is a community, near a large city, with an industrial economy. These communities may be established as tax havens or as places where zoning promotes industry, or they may be industrial towns that become suburbs by urban spra ...

with

shipyards A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...

. The Galainela shipyard and the ENA drydock until recently operated as a joint venture with Curaçao CDM and the Navy's shipyard at Casablanca, docks including the TCH (Havana Container Terminal), the Ñico Lopez refinery, formerly an Esso (EXXON) Refinery popularly known as Belot Refinery due to the location, and a Shell (Shell Oil Company) Refinery built side by side with Belot; flour and wheat mills and aviation fuel depots.

History

It is known for its rich colonial history, being the home town of

Chacón Chacón is a Spanish surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Alex Pineda Chacón (born 1969), coach for the Atlanta Silverbacks *Alicia R. Chacón (born 1938), American politician and judge *Antonio Chacón (1869–1929), flamenco singer ...

Guaracheros de Regla Guaracheros de Regla was the name of a carnival comparsa of Havana, Cuba. Created by Humberto Medina (dancer), Humberto Medina, known as the Guarachero Mayor. Overview The group started in 1959 in Regla and in 1960 were invited to the Havana car ...

and the traditional

Virgen de Regla The term ''Black Madonna'' or ''Black Virgin'' tends to refer to statues or paintings in Western Christendom of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, where both figures are depicted with dark skin. The Black Madonna can be found both ...

Santería Santería (), also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diaspora religions, African diasporic religion that developed in Cuba during the late 19th century. It arose through a process of syncretism between the tradit ...

celebrations. It formed during the colonial period around the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Regla (est. 1690) and was officially founded in 1687 (1765). In 1755 the population of Regla was 164; 789 in 1778; and 2,218 in 1810. Regla has a strong patriotic tradition being home to several patriots and personalities, among them Eduardo Facciolo, executed by the colonial Spanish government for conspiring for Cuban independence, and

Miguel Coyula Miguel Coyula Aquino (born March 31, 1977, in Havana) is a Cuban filmmaker and writer. At age 17, he made his first short with a VHS camcorder, which led to his admittance to Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television (The International Film and ...

, who reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the Cuban Liberation Army ( Mambi Army) in its fight against colonial Spain. It is an historic known fact the first speech with political pro-independence overtones given by National Apostle

José Martí José Julián Martí Pérez (; January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the libera ...

was delivered in the Lyceum of Regla. During the struggle against dictator

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 ...

, due to the strong opposition to Batista, the town was described as "sierra chiquita" (little mountain range) in allusion to the rebels in the

Sierra Maestra The Sierra Maestra is a mountain range that runs westward across the south of the old Oriente Province in southeast Cuba, rising abruptly from the coast. The range falls mainly within the Santiago de Cuba and in Granma Provinces. Some view it a ...

range. The most conspicuous public action against Batista in town was led by Juan Alborna Salado, at the time 21 years old, head of the clandestine militias of the '' Movimiento 26 de Julio'' in town, in March 1958, when the local police killed another young man of Regla named Gilberto Monzon. The young men Leonardo Lopez, Filiberto Torres, Luis Lorenzo Gonzalez, Marcos Gonzalez, Manuel Lopez Guenaga, Elio Serrano, German Roche, Pedro Valdes, Jose Luis Cabrera and others seconded him. All of them belonged to the Movimiento 26 de Julio. Thousands of people took to the streets, with the burial of the young men being a centerpoint of a riot, and a crowd escorted the funerary car up to the cemetery at which Alborna and Luis Lorenzo Gonzalez spoke. Motorized police reinforcements took Regla and surrounded the cemetery and shot at close range. The police took prisoners, and many escaped, including Juan Alborna, but with a hand injury that was cured by his girlfriend Noemi Vidal. It was practically a popular uprising. But in 1960 Juan Alborna Salado became dissident.

Demographics

In 2004, the municipality of Regla had a population of 44,431. With an area of , it had a population density of . Regla is divided into Barrios or Colonias, including Reparto Modelo, La Colonia, La Loma and La Colina Lenin. It is also divided into three Consejos Populares (People's Council), the grassroots local government form in Cuba, namely Guaicanamar, comprising Regla downtown; Loma-Modelo, comprising Regla suburbs; and

, comprising the village of the same name and its surrounding area.

Twin towns

Corsico Corsico (Milanese: ) is a '' comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Milan in the Italian region Lombardy, bordering Milan on the southwest. Corsico received the honorary title of city with a presidential decree on 22 July 1987. Corsico is ser ...

, Italy, since 2003 *

Richmond, California Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was municipal corporation, incorporated on August 7, 1905, and has a Richmond, California City Council, city council.

, USA'Forgotten Cities' Hope to Bridge Chasm Between U.S. and Cuba
/ref> *

Almada Almada () is a city and a municipality in Portugal, located on the southern margin of the Tagus River, on the opposite side of the river from Lisbon. The two cities are connected by the 25 de Abril Bridge. The population in 2011 was 174,030, in a ...

, Portugal, since 2004

References

External links