Morón

The first settlers of Morón were Creoles from Sancti Spíritus, joined, it is said, by Spanish sailors from Andalusia, Galicia, the Canary Islands and elsewhere who had sailed around Cuba and stayed. Its founding is dated variously: the official date is 24 May 1543, while the town grew as a community from the mid-18th century. It lived for generations on small-scale, mostly sugar farming, while on the cays to the north a few squatters made charcoal and fished, reaching the mainland by small sailing boat in a journey of many hours.

During the first war of independence, from 1869, the Spanish built the Trocha, a line of forts across the island from Júcaro to Morón to contain the rebels in the east. It included a railway to move troops and supplies, the first government railway in Cuba, and in 1897 a new line linked Morón with Ciego de Ávila. The town's real growth began in 1915, when the Trocha line was bought for a new northern railway with Morón as its headquarters. Its workshops and large station became the heart of the town, and branch lines and sugar lines spread the sugar mills across the north. The grand station opened in 1924.

In 1940 a channel was cut from the Laguna de Leche to the sea to carry the town's sugar to a small port; after the channel was closed in 1988, the lake's milky colour gradually recovered. A road was built across the marshes to the coast in the 1960s and later extended by causeway to Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo, turning Morón into the mainland base for the new resorts.

The rooster is Morón's symbol. The Spanish saying 'like the rooster of Morón, plucked and still crowing' was known in Spain by the early 18th century and in Cuba at least from 1763, and over time it came to be attached to this Morón as well as to Morón de la Frontera in Spain. A bronze rooster by Armando Alonso, made with the collaboration of the sculptor Rita Longa, has stood at the entrance to the town since 1982, beside a clock tower that broadcasts a cockcrow three times every six hours. An earlier rooster by the same artist was pulled down soon after the revolution, when some saw it as an emblem of the previous government.

The town has a musical son of note in Pío Leyva, the singer and composer of the guaracha El Mentiroso, who later sang with the Buena Vista Social Club. Morón's first newspaper, El Faro de Morón, appeared around 1855 with a literary bent.

Life here has been shaped by the railway, the sugar mills and, since the causeway was built, the resorts, where many residents now work. In the past, decorated boats paraded on the Laguna de Leche in an annual water carnival, each representing a theme from the region. For visitors staying on the cays, a trip to Morón is the easiest way to see more of what everyday Cuba is like.

The municipality of Morón had about 70,600 people in 2022. It is the second most important of the ten municipalities of Ciego de Ávila province and the oldest, and it also administers the resort cays of Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo. The land around it is mostly flat, with small hills to the north and marshes along the shore.

Agriculture and tourism are the main economic activities. Many hotel workers live in Morón and commute to the cays each day in buses provided for them. The railway is still important: the station is a junction between the Santa Clara–Nuevitas line and the line from Júcaro through Ciego de Ávila. In the streets, bicycle taxis carry most local passengers.

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, flights have been disrupted and shortages of fuel, food and medicine have deepened. Like the rest of the region, Morón has lost many young adults to emigration in recent years.

Morón eats the national staples of rice and beans, cooked together as moros y cristianos or congrí, pork, chicken, yuca with mojo, a garlic and citrus dressing, and plantain served as crisp tostones or sweet maduros. Cattle are raised in the area too.

The Laguna de Leche gives the town its food specialities. The lakeside is known for seafood — shellfish of several kinds, lobster and prawns — served in the bars and in a restaurant built on stilts over the water.

In the past, the pineapple and orange fields of the municipality supplied almost the whole island, its water helped grow some of the best irrigated sugar cane in the province, and sugar mills such as Patria surrounded the town. Guarapo, fresh sugar-cane juice, is sold in the sugar country around the town. Coffee is drunk strong and sweet from small cups throughout the day, and rum is the drink of celebrations.