CONDITIONS in CUBA AS REVEALED 

 BY THE CENSUS* 



By Henry Gannett 



IN the autumn of 1907 a census of 

 the population of Cuba was taken. 

 The primary purpose of this census 

 was to obtain, by means of non-partisan 

 machinery, a list of the persons qualified 

 to vote, to serve as a basis for the then 

 approaching municipal and national elec- 

 tions. Because such was the primary 

 purpose, the census was not extended to 

 include the industries of the island, but 

 related solely to the population. The 

 questions asked differed but little from 

 those employed in the Cuban census of 

 1899 and in the census of the Philip- 

 pines. 



The results of this census were tabu- 

 lated by the United States Census Office 

 and a report, printed in Spanish only, is 

 about to be issued. From the results I 

 have brought together a few of the more 

 striking facts. 



The civil organization of Cuba is as 

 follows : 



The island is divided into 6 provinces, 

 and these provinces into 82 municipali- 

 ties. These municipalities are in turn 

 divided into 1,069 barrios, the "barrio" 

 being the smallest political subdivision of 

 the island. There are no cities, towns, 

 villages, or boroughs, as we understand 

 those terms. The urban parts of the 

 municipalities are not separated from the 

 adjoining rural parts. It is possible, 

 however, in the case of most centers of 

 population, to make an approximate sep- 

 aration by means of the barrios, certain 

 of the barrios of a municipality being 

 composed mainly, if not entirely, of 

 urban or of rural inhabitants. 



a remarkable; natural increase in 

 population 



The population of Cuba on September 

 30, 1907, was 2,048,980 ; at the census 

 next preceding, taken under American 



administration, in 1899, at the close of 

 the Spanish-American War, the popula- 

 tion was 1,572,797. 



The rate of increase in these eight 

 years is not less than 30 per cent, or at 

 the rate of 39 per cent per decade. This 

 is a very rapid rate of increase— greater 

 than that of any country with which I 

 am acquainted. 



This increase has not been brought 

 about by immigration, for in the eight 

 years the net immigration (that is, the 

 excess of arrivals over departures) num- 

 bered only 75,000, and the element of 

 foreign birth increased from 11 per cent 

 to 1 1.2 per cent only, but it has been 

 brought about almost entirely by the ex- 

 cess of births over deaths. During the 

 years of revolution, when a large part of 

 the men were away from their homes 

 fighting for freedom, marriages and 

 births were very few, and at the close of 

 the war there were great arrears to be 

 made up. The natural result followed — 

 an astonishing birth rate, which is shown 

 in the fact that by the last census the 

 number of children under five years of 

 age, who, of course, have been born since 

 the war, accounts for three-fourths of 

 the increase in population. 



One peculiar phenomenon of this in- 

 crease is that the rural population has 

 gained much more rapidly than has the 

 urban — a condition which rarely exists, 

 as in nearly every country in the world 

 the drift of population is toward the 

 cities. 



The urban population, including all 

 places of 1,000 inhabitants and over, was 

 43.9 per cent of the total population. In 

 1899 it was 47.1 per cent. If the urban 

 population be limited to towns of 8,000 

 inhabitants, the proportion was 30.3 per 

 cent. The chief cities are Habana, with 

 297,159 inhabitants, or about one-seventh 



*Paper read before the Americap Association of Geographers, January 2, 1909. 



