Granma Province (Provincia Granma)
The province takes its name from the yacht Granma, used by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro to land in Cuba with 82 guerrillas on December 2, 1956; until 1976 the area formed part of Santiago de Cuba larger province "Oriente Province". The American who sold the guerillas the secondhand yacht in Mexico apparently had named it "Granma" ("Granma", more usually "Grandma", is an affectionate term for a grandmother) after his grandmother. The name of the vessel became an icon for Cuban communism.
The province is full of reminders of the Cuban Revolution, and of the Cuban Wars of Independence; plaques in the mountain commemorate the 1959 struggle against Fulgencio Batista. Other sites, unmarked, include archaeological digs, the sites of several palenques, and the fortified hamlets of escaped slaves. In 2005 Hurricane Dennis destroyed the site of Castro's headquarters at La Plata. There are numerous abandoned gold, silver, and manganese mine sites.
At the 2018 parliamentary election, Granma was the province with the highest proportion of votes recorded for the full list.
On 12 April 2020, Veguitas, a town in Gramna Province, recorded a temperature of 39.7 C. This is the highest temperature to have ever been recorded in Cuba.
Map - Granma Province (Provincia Granma)
Map
Country - Cuba
Flag of Cuba |
The territory that is now Cuba was inhabited by the Ciboney people from the 4th millennium BC with the Guanahatabey and Taíno peoples until Spanish colonization in the 15th century. From the 15th century, it was a colony of Spain, and slavery was abolished in 1886, remaining a Spanish colony until the Spanish–American War of 1898, when Cuba was occupied by the United States and gained independence in 1902. In 1940, Cuba implemented a new constitution, but mounting political unrest culminated in a coup in 1952 and the subsequent dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, which was later overthrown in January 1959 by the 26th of July Movement during the Cuban Revolution, which afterwards established communist rule under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The country was a point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and a nuclear war nearly broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba faced a severe economic downturn in the 1990s, known as the Special Period. In 2008, Fidel Castro resigned after 49 years of leadership of Cuba and was replaced by his brother Raúl Castro.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
CUC | Cuban convertible peso | $ | 2 |
CUP | Cuban peso | $ | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
ES | Spanish language |