Cienfuegos

Cienfuegos City - Other Cities and Attractions

Basic Information
Area: 4,178 sq. km
Capital: Cienfuegos
Population: 386,100

Cienfuegos is the smallest province in Cuba. Once a predominantly agricultural province, Cienfuegos has undergone subtantial development since the Revolution and is now one of the most industrialised of all the provinces.

Its location on the southern coast of central Cuba has made it vulnerable to attack from pirates and corsairs through the ages. As the Cuban authorities look towards promoting tourism on their island, so Cienfuegos has begun to gear up to accommodate a more welcome type of visitor. The capital city of the province is also called Cienfuegos and was founded by French settlers in 1819.

Although much of the province is relatively flat, the foothills of the Escambray mountains in the east are a pleasant and scenic attraction and there are several unspoiled beaches stretching along the coast towards the province of Sancti Spiritus.
Scuba diving off Cienfuegos province is extremely popular both with tourists and locals. There are numerous underwater caves, and well over 50 dive sites in the province.

Sugar is the area's main crop, with much of it being exported from the port of Cienfuegos, the capital of the province. In the middle of the Island, this province surrounds one of the most beautiful bays in Cuba, Jagua, settlement of aboriginal communities and later besieged with privateers and pirates have so many legends that it has its own mythology.