Mayabeque Province
Mayabeque Province is one of 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 Artemisa Province. The new provinces came in to existence on J ...
of
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 southeast 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.Mayabeque River. It is the most populated town, but not the capital, of its province.
History
The city was founded in 1737 by the Spanish. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, what is now Güines was part of a region ruled by the Indian chief Habaguanex.
One of the earliest mentions of the word Güines is in 1598, when Don Diego de Rivera or Ribera was awarded a land grant for ''Los Güines Corral''.
Güines can be considered one of the primary points of Cuba's transformation into a sugar-producing slave society in the wake of the
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution ( or ; ) was a successful insurrection by slave revolt, self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known Slave rebellion, slave up ...
. Its demographics radically changed as a result. As the historian Ada Ferrer explains, "people classified as white had accounted for about three-quarters of the population in 1775" but "by the 1820s, they constituted less than 38 percent."
In 1837, a railway was opened from Havana - the first in Cuba and Spain, and one of the earliest in the Americas.
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 delimited by functional (e.g. residential, comm ...
s of Catalina, Norte, Rural Primero, Rural Segundo, Rural Tercero, Rural Cuarto and Sur.
Demographics
In 2022, the municipality of Güines had a population of 65,037. With a total area of . It has a population density of .
Municipalities of Cuba
The Provinces of Cuba, provinces of Cuba are divided into 168 municipality, municipalities (). They were defined by Cuban Law Number 1304 of July 3, 1976Fifth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, Vol. II, publish ...
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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 ...