THE CUBA REVIEW \\ 



Province of Havana 



Something of Its Topography and Its Beautiful Drives 



By George Reno 

 Director, Buremi of Injormation, Department of Agriculture 



The Province of Havana, with its area of 3,171 square miles, is the smallest 

 province in Cuba, and yet owmg to the City of Havana, capital of the Republic, it 

 plays a very important part in the social, political and economic life of the Republic. 



Geographically, it is the pivotal province of Cuba, since the narrowest place across 

 the long arch-like stretch of the Island is found along the border between Havana and 

 Pinar del Rio, where only twenty-two miles lie between the' Mexican Gulf and the 

 Caribbean Sea. The province proper measures about thirty miles from north to south, 

 with an average width of fifty-five. 



The topography of Havana includes a varied assortment of hills, ridges, plateaus, 

 valleys and plains, so that the scenery never becomes monotonous; and with the numerous 

 automobile drives that radiate from the capital, shaded with the luxuriant foliage of 

 royal palms, bamboo and other forms of tropical vegetation, it offers to the tourist 

 and traveler an almost endless panorama of charming change and pleasant surprise. 

 The average altitude of Havana Province is slightly lower than either Matanzas or Pinar 

 del Rio, bordering on the east and west. 



Columbus, on his second voyage of discovery, cruised along the southern coast 

 of Cuba until he reached a point a little west of the Indian village of Batabano. Here 

 he heard of another island not far to the south. Leaving the coast he threaded his 

 way through shoals and scattered keys, that even up to the present time have been 

 only imperfectly charted, and finally, on July 12, 1494, landed at some place on the 

 northern shore. He called this island the Evangelist. It is the largest of a chain of 

 keys running parallel with this part of the south coast, irregular in form with an area 

 of approximately eight hundred square miles, and forms the southern half of the 

 judicial district of Havana. 



Columbus remained here, taking on fresh water and wood until June 25th. and 

 then began his return voyage east, sailing over shoals that displayed so many varying 

 shades of green, purple and white, that his mariners are said to have become alarmed. 



Some twenty years later Diego Velasquez cruised along the southern coast to a 

 point west of the Giiines River, where he founded a city which he called San Cristobal 

 de la Havana. The fifty odd colonists whom he left behind soon became dissatisfied 

 with the general surroundings of the spot Velasco had selected for their abiding place 

 and moved over to the north shore of the Island near the mouth of the Alraendares 

 River, which they found in every way more agreeable as a place of permanent residence. 

 In 1519 a second move was made to the Bay of Carenas, where they located per- 

 manently on the harbor, destined soon after to become the most important port of the 

 West Indies. 



The inhabitants of that irregular group of palm-thatched huts little dreamed that 

 four centuries later the Port of Havana would have a foreign commerce whose tonnage 

 is excelled by only one other in the Western Hemisphere. 



With the exception of the low, grass-covered plains of the southern shore, the 

 topography of the Province of Havana is undulating and picturesque. The northern 

 shore, throughout most of its length, especially from the City of Havana west to 

 Matanzas, rises more or less abruptly from the beach until it reaches a rather uneven 

 plateau, several hundred feet above the level of the sea. 



In the northwestern corner, some two miles back from the shore line, the "Pan" 

 or "Loma of Guayabon," which is really a continuation of the Organ ^klountains of 

 Pinar del Rio, forms a palm-covered, picturesque ridge, six hundred feet in height, 

 extending from east to west for several miles. Along the southern edge of this range 



