Cienfuegos (city)

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Cienfuegos
Coordinates: 22 ° 9 ′  N , 80 ° 27 ′  W
Map: Cuba
marker
Cienfuegos​
Cienfuegos on the map of Cuba
Basic data
Country Cuba
province Cienfuegos
City foundation 1819
Residents 171,946  (2012)
City insignia
Escudo-Cienfuegos.jpg
Detailed data
surface 333 km 2
Population density 483.5 inhabitants / km 2
height 25  m
prefix + 53-43
Time zone UTC -5
City Hall of Cienfuegos
City Hall of Cienfuegos
Typical street in Cienfuegos
Triumphal Arch at Parque José Martí
Promenade in Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos is the capital of the province of the same name in central Cuba . With 171,946 inhabitants (2012 census) it is the sixth largest city in Cuba. It is located on the third largest bay in Cuba with 88 km², the Jagua Bay (Spanish: bahía de Jagua ). Because of its attractiveness, the city is called the “Pearl of the South” in Cuba, and because of its favorable location it used to be called “The Great American Port”. In 2005 the historic city center was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO .

history

The bay was described for the first time by Christopher Columbus in 1494 and the neighboring region was named "Cacicazgo de Jagua". In addition to the local indigenous people, Spaniards began to colonize the area. Around 1745 the Fort Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Jagua was built to protect against pirate attacks. The first sugar mill near the village was built in 1751. After the expansion of the settlement and port that had now been established had begun at the end of the 18th century, 46 families from France and the nearby French colonies settled in the fortress in April 1819 at the instigation of the Spanish Lieutenant Colonel Fernandina de Jagua . The place still under Spanish rule was named "Fernandina de Jagua" after the Spanish King Ferdinand VII. When a heavy storm destroyed large parts of the town in 1825, reconstruction began under the direction of the immigrant French town planner D'Clouet. The checkerboard road network that still characterizes the city today was created. Then in 1829 it was renamed after the Spanish Governor General José Cienfuegos .

The historical French influence is still visible in the city today, for example through the only triumphal arch to be found in Cuba , which the settlers of the time erected in memory of their distant homeland. Today it represents the western boundary of Parque José Martí , one of the most attractive places in the city. There is also the Teatro Tomás Terry, a theater building with a capacity of 900 people. It was built in the neoclassical style at the end of the 19th century from the legacy of the Venezuelan sugar baron Tomás Terry .

In 1881 Cienfuegos was granted city rights, making it one of the youngest cities in Cuba. Due to the export advantages based on the port and the connection to the Cuban railway network in 1860, the city achieved economic success with which the nearby city of Trinidad could not keep up and thus lost its regional supremacy over Cienfuegos. On May 11, 1898, a battle between American and Spanish troops took place near Cienfuegos. On September 5, 1957, Cuban naval officers, with the support of the Castro rebels, briefly occupied the military base in the city to protest against the Batista regime .

economy

Cienfuegos has been a center of the sugar industry since the 19th century . Since sugar was one of Cuba's most important export goods, the world's largest sugar export port was established in Cienfuegos. The tobacco industry and shrimp fishing are other important industries in the city. In 1983, with Soviet help, construction began on Cuba's only nuclear power plant on the Bay of Cienfuegos . Because of the collapse of the Soviet Union , it was never completed. The petrochemical plant, which was also built by Soviet experts in Cienfuegos in the early 1990s, had to cease operations due to a lack of oil deliveries. After the plant was repaired in April 2006, a joint venture was founded by the oil companies Cuba Petroleo and Petroleos de Venezuela .

Well-known citizens and artists

Town twinning

literature

Web links

Commons : Cienfuegos  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Census 2012 (PDF; 257 kB) , ONE