Camagüey

Spanish colonists led by Diego Velázquez founded Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe on 2 February 1514 on the north coast, near present-day Nuevitas, as one of the seven original towns of Spanish Cuba. In 1528 the settlement moved inland to the site of a Taíno village called Camagüey, a name the city and its province formally took after independence. The surrounding grasslands suited cattle, and for centuries the town lived largely by ranching.

The pirate Henry Morgan sacked and burned the town in 1668. One explanation for its maze of blind alleys and forked streets is that it was laid out to trap raiders; many locals call that a myth and say the streets simply grew without a plan, as everyone wanted to stay close to their own church. In the mid-18th century the governor Luis de Unzaga rebuilt much of the city after damage in the War of Jenkins' Ear.

Camagüey was a stronghold of the independence cause. Its son Ignacio Agramonte, born in 1841, helped draft the first Cuban constitution in 1869 and led the rebel cavalry in the Ten Years' War until he was killed in battle on 11 May 1873; the Spanish burned his body in the city for fear the rebels would try to recover it. In the 20th century sugar mills and railways spread across the plains around it. In July 2008 UNESCO listed the old town as a World Heritage Site for its maze-like plan, its role in early colonisation and its varied architecture, and that November the city saw the beatification of José Olallo, a friar who had cared for the sick at the San Juan de Dios hospital.

The tinajón is Camagüey's emblem. These huge clay jars, introduced by the Spanish, were half-buried beneath gutters to collect rainwater and keep it cool, and were soon made in the town itself; a family's wealth could be judged by the number and style of its jars. Today they decorate streets, parks and courtyards, some as small as a hand and some big enough for two people to stand in, and the city is known as the city of the tinajones. The poet Aurelia Castillo wrote a famous poem about them, and local lore says that whoever drinks from one stays in Camagüey.

The city has a strong literary and artistic tradition. Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, the national poet Nicolás Guillén and the writer Severo Sarduy were born here, as was the physician Carlos Finlay, who identified the mosquito that spreads yellow fever. The Ballet de Camagüey is the country's second classical ballet company, and the city has folk, traditional and modern dance groups, choirs, theatre companies and art galleries. With more than 30 Catholic churches, it is also a city of parishes and patron saints.

The great popular festival is the San Juan camagüeyano, the carnival held around 24 June, still celebrated despite the crisis, if with less colour than in the past. Baseball is followed closely: the Toros de Camagüey, nicknamed the Potters, play at the Estadio Cándido González.

The municipality of Camagüey had about 333,000 people in 2022, making it the third-largest city in Cuba. It is the capital of Camagüey province and the commercial, university and transport centre of the cattle plains, and is divided into four districts. The University of Camagüey, founded in 1967 and merged with the sports and teaching universities in 2016, has more than 12,000 students, and a separate medical university trains doctors.

The economy of the province has long rested on cattle, sugar and the railway. Inside the old town, families live in colonial houses behind ornamental window grilles. Bicycle taxis are the usual way to move around, and local buses are scarce and crowded.

Daily life follows the national pattern of low state wages, rationing, queues and frequent power cuts and water shortages. Island-wide blackouts have recurred through 2026, and since the United States began blocking fuel shipments to Cuba early in the year, shortages of fuel, food and medicine have deepened. Like the rest of the region, Camagüey has lost many young adults to emigration in recent years.

The dish most tied to the city is the ajiaco camagüeyano, a thick stew of yuca, boniato (sweet potato), green, half-ripe and ripe plantain, yam and pumpkin with tasajo (salt-dried beef), pork and beef ribs and fresh corn on the cob, cooked until the broth turns thick. During the San Juan festival it is made and shared out by neighbours on the very block where it was cooked.

Matajíbaro is another local speciality: pork crackling ground together with ripe and half-ripe plantains and garlic. With its long ranching tradition, Camagüey is famed for its cheeses, and queso criollo is one of its typical dishes. Rice with beef and ripe plantain and maíz pelao, a dish of hulled corn, are also part of the local repertoire, alongside casabe, a flat cassava bread.

Everyday meals are the national staples of rice and beans, pork, yuca and plantain, at home, in casas particulares and in the paladares of the old centre. Coffee is drunk strong and sweet from small cups throughout the day, rum is the drink of celebrations, and guarapo, fresh cane juice, is sold in the sugar country.