Havana is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. It is the most populous city, the largest by area, and the second largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The population in 2012 was 2,154,454 inhabitants, and its area is 728.26 km2 (281.18 sq mi) for the capital city side and 8,475.57 km2 for the metropolitan zone.
El Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, also called La Necrópolis de Cristóbal Colón, was founded in 1876 in the Vedado neighbourhood of Havana, Cuba to replace the Espada Cemetery in the Barrio de San Lázaro. Named for Christopher Columbus, the cemetery is noted for its many elaborately sculpted memorials. It is estimated the cemetery has more than 500 major mausoleums. Before the Espada Cemetery and the Colon Cemetery were built, interments took place in crypts at the various churches throughout Havana, for example, at the Havana Cathedral or Church Crypts in Havana Vieja.
The Malecón is a broad esplanade, roadway, and seawall that stretches for 8 km along the coast in Havana, Cuba, from the mouth of Havana Harbor in Old Havana, along the north side of the Centro Habana neighborhood and the Vedado neighborhood, ending at the mouth of the Almendares.
The Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Cuba. It is a metropolitan see with four suffragan dioceses in its ecclesiastical province: Guantánamo-Baracoa, Holguín and Santísimo Salvador de Bayamo y Manzanillo.
Bishop Diego Evelino Hurtado Vélez was the Bishop of Diocese of Santiago de Cuba. He was known as Bishop Diego Evelino Hurtado de Compostela.
Eliseo Valdés Erustes is a Cuban artist specializing in sculpture, painting, and drawing.
The Espada Cemetery was located in the Barrio of San Lazaro approximately a mile west of the city walls, near the cove of Juan Guillen and close to the San Lázaro Leper Hospital. In use from 1806 to 1878, the Espada Cemetery was the first public burial place designed and constructed in Havana; prior to the cemetery, the Havana custom had been to bury the dead in the vaults of the churches such as Iglesia del Espíritu Santo in Havava Vieja. It was named after the Bishop incumbent at the time of design, José Díaz de Espada y Landa. Its boundaries included the present streets of San Lázaro, Vapor, Espada, and Aramburu. Despite being officially called Campo Santo, the people of Havana referred to the cemetery as el Cementerio de Espada. The cemetery was closed in 1878 and demolished in 1908, only a small wall remains of the original structure.
The Cuban Grand Prix, also known as the Havana Grand Prix, was a sports car motor race held for a brief period in the late 1950s in Havana, Cuba, last raced in 1960. The 1958 race is best remembered as the backdrop to the kidnapping of Formula One World Champion driver Juan Manuel Fangio by anti-government rebels linked to the 26th of July Movement.
The Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, officially the Hospital Clínico Quirúrgico "Hermanos Ameijeiras", is located in Barrio San Lazaro and is the premier hospital in Cuba, its tower prominently visible from the Malecón between the historic center and the uptown Vedado neighborhood. It was opened in 1982.
The following is a timeline of the history of Havana, Cuba.
Cayo Hueso is a consejo popular (ward) in the municipality of Centro Habana, Havana, Cuba. A traditionally working-class neighborhood populated by Afro-Cubans, it is known for its many cultural landmarks such as the Callejón de Hamel, the Fragua Martiana Museum and the Parque de los Mártires Universitarios.
The Iglesia del Espíritu Santo is a colonial church at #702 Calle Cuba in Old Havana, Havana, Cuba, was built in 1635 on the corner of the corner of Calles Cuba and Acosta. The Espíritu Santo contains some notable paintings including a seated, post-crucifixion Christ on the right wall, and catacombs. It is considered one of the oldest temples in Havana. Free blacks, already numerous, devoted the church to the Holy Spirit in 1638.
Hospital de San Lázaro was a hospital in the city of Havana, Cuba. It dates back to the 17th century, when it served as headquarters for some huts built near the Caleta de Juan Guillén, then known as Caleta de San Lázaro, in an area about a mile outside the city walls.
Barrio de San Lázaro is one of the first neighbourhoods in Havana, Cuba. It initially occupied the area bounded by Calle Infanta to the west, Calle Zanja to the south, Calle Belascoáin to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the north, forming the western edge of Centro Habana. According to the 1855 Ordenanzas Municipales of the city of Havana, Barrio San Lázaro was the Tercer Distrito and was Barrio No. 8.
The Colegio de Belén is a private religious school in Marianao, Havana, located between 45th and 66th streets, next door to the Tropicana nightclub,. It was designed in 1925 by the architect Leonardo Morales y Pedroso and his brother the engineer Luis Morales y Pedroso of the firm Morales y Compañía Arquitectos.
There is an abandoned Jai alai court in the back of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, the site of the old Casa de Beneficencia, on Calles Concordia and Lucenas near Calle Belascoain, an area that had been considered in the early part of the city as a place to locate the helpless and the unwanted, it was the edge of the city and the countryside known as the "basurero"; the spectator stands were parallel to Calle Concordia, the front wall of the court faced Calle Lucenas, east in the direction towards Old Havana. The original building has been annexed by five stories of residential concrete construction on the north side along Calle Virtudes. The Havana Jai alai fronton was known as "the palace of screams".
Arcabuco was the name of a footpath starting in Old Havana, in the vicinity of the church of Loma del Ángel, and ran in a westerly direction to an inlet cove of approximately 93 metres (305 ft) wide and 5.5 metres (18 ft) in depth. When Juan Guillén a Spanish soldier installed a carpentry shop to build small boats close to the cove the site became known as “La Caleta de Juan Guillén”, the road was known as “the caleta”. Eventually the Hospital de San Lázaro, the Espada Cemetery, the San Dionisio mental asylum, and La Casa de Beneficencia were developed in close proximity to the Caleta de San Lazaro.
El Torreón de San Lázaro is round tower of masonry built on the shore of the Caleta de San Lazaro. The Torreón de San Lázaro is approximately 4.57 metres (15.0 ft) in diameter and 9.14 metres (30.0 ft) high with embrasures along its wall at the intermediate level and a battlement parapet at the third level roof. It has a wooden entry door at ground level. With the passage of time, the San Lazaro cove was filled and the tower was included in a Republican-era park named after Major General Antonio Maceo. In an 1853 map of Havana it is shown as the Torreón de Vijias (lookouts). In 1982, the Torreón was inscribed along with other historic sites in Old Havana on the UNESCO World Heritage List, because of the city's importance in the European conquest of the New World and its unique architecture.
Batería de la de la Reina, built between 1856 and 1861, was a colonial military defense fortress that had accommodations for a garrison of 250 men and 44 pieces of artillery. It was demolished in 1901. Its site was in the esplanade that today occupies the Antonio Maceo park. The fort was a semi-circular building with a 44-gun battery facing the sea. Its fires intersected with those of the Santa Clara Battery and the “Castillo de la Punta”.
The Antonio Maceo monument is a 1916 bronze statue by the Italian sculptor Doménico Boni located in the neighborhood of San Lázaro, between Malecón and the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital.
Ciudad de La Habana 
