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INTRODUCTION

The palm-covered island of Cuba 3 is frequently called the Pearl of the Antilles. It is the largest of the West Indian Islands and lies in the Caribbean Sea only about 90 miles south of Key West, Florida. Cuba is the nearest to the United States all of our Latin American neighbors with the exception of Mexico (fig. 1). It has an area of

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44,164 square miles, which is about the size of either Pennsylvania or Louisiana, and it is about three times as large as Switzerland. Cuba is rather densely populated, with about 4.2 million inhabitants. The climate is subtropical, frost-free, but with moderate rainfall. Sugar and, to a smaller extent, tobacco are by far the most important items produced and exported.

The Republic of Cuba consists of the island of Cuba, about 27.5 million acres, and the Isle of Pines, about three-fourths of a million acres, in addition to numerous smaller islands. Cuba is long and narrow, extending 760 miles from end to end, but is only 25 to 100 miles wide. The eastern end is only 50 miles from Haiti and less than

The island was named Juana (by Columbus), then Fernandia, Santiago, and Ave María, and finally regained its original Indian name of Cuba.

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