Camagüey

Camagüey City - Other Cities And Attractions

Basic Information
Area: 15,990 sq. km
Capital: Camagüey
Population: 774,100

Camagüey is the biggest province in the country, with more than 14,000 square kilometers. The panorama of Camagüey province is uniformly flat, broken up only by palm trees, whilst the soil, some of the most fertile in the land, makes it suitable for the growing of sugar cane. The area is also cattle country-home to herds of cattle, primarily Cuban Charolais, which are bred for beef, and Zebu, bred for their milk.

This province is also home to one of the most important port towns in the country, Nuevitas, which handles the transportation of the many thousand of tons of sugar produced by the 13 provincial sugar mills. Camagüey also boasts the up and coming beach resort of Santa Lucia, some 100 km north of the city.

The province has 120 km of beaches, almost 25% of the whole country, which convert it in the potential most important tourist focus in Cuba. In Santa Lucia, with its 20 km of beach, many of them virgin and protected by a choral barrier, you can learn and practice diving. The best beaches in the zone are in Boca, near the access channel to the Nuevitas Bay, semi isolated and little visited. Following to the west is the Sabinal key joined to the island by a road of stone. Romano and Cruz with 40 km of beaches with very fine sands are ideal places for diving too. In this zone lives an important colony of pink flamingo on the Caribbean.

The capital of the province is the city of Camagüey, one of the 7 first villages founded by Diego Velazques in 1515, with the name of Santa Maria del Puerto Principe, in the place known as Punta del Guincho, at the west side of the Nuevitas Bay. The constant pirates' attack obligated to their first residents to move the city in 1516 to the border of the Caonao River.

In 1528 the city was settled finally in the Indian place known as Camaguelo Camaguebax, in the center of the province. Very soon it lost this peculiar name and it was named as Puerto Principe, which was lost too. Today every body calls it Camagüey.