Santiago de Cuba

Diego Velázquez founded Santiago de Cuba on 25 July 1515 as the seventh of the island's first Spanish towns. Burned in 1516 and rebuilt at once, it became the starting point for the expeditions of Juan de Grijalva and Hernán Cortés to Mexico in 1518 and of Hernando de Soto to Florida in 1538, and it was the capital of the colony from 1522 until 1589. French raiders plundered it in 1553 and the English in 1603 and again, under Christopher Myngs, in 1662. During the British occupation of Havana it briefly served as the capital again, in 1762–63.

Around 1803, during the last days of the Haitian Revolution, some eighteen thousand refugees from Saint-Domingue — French planters, free people of colour and freed Africans — arrived, and many founded coffee estates in the hills. French citizens were ordered out of Cuba in 1809, but those who stayed left a lasting mark. In 1862 Facundo Bacardí founded his rum business here. In 1898 US and Cuban forces won the battle of San Juan Hill on 1 July, the Spanish fleet was destroyed outside the harbour on 3 July, and the city was occupied by the United States on 16 July.

The revolution began here on 26 July 1953 with the failed attack led by Fidel Castro on the Moncada Barracks. Frank País then built a strong urban resistance in the city until he was killed in 1957, and on 1 January 1959 Castro proclaimed victory from the city hall balcony. Castro's ashes were buried in Santa Ifigenia in December 2016. Residents protested against blackouts and shortages in 2021 and again in 2024, and on 29 October 2025 Hurricane Melissa made landfall in the province, flooding streets across the city and damaging its refinery and airport.

Santiago is one of the great musical cities of the Caribbean. Son, the root of salsa, grew up here and in the eastern countryside, and trova was created by wandering singers of the Oriente, especially in Santiago, who earned their living singing to the guitar. Sindo Garay, Miguel Matamoros and Ñico Saquito came from the city or its villages, as did Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer and Eliades Ochoa, later famous through the Buena Vista Social Club. The Casa de la Trova is the best-known place to hear it.

July is festival month. The Fiesta del Fuego, held since 1981 and dedicated each year to a Latin American country, ends with the burning of a Devil figure in the square. The carnival grew out of the mamarrachos, the summer festivals held on saints' days in June and July, and is famous for its comparsas and its conga bands led by the shrill trompeta china.

The mix of peoples is unusually rich. A relatively high number of residents follow Afro-Cuban religions, above all Santería, and descendants of migrants from Haiti keep traditions such as the tumba francesa and a vodún heritage. The Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, the patroness of Cuba, is honoured in the shrine outside the city. The city also produced the poet José María Heredia, the Baroque composer Esteban Salas and the Olympic champion Alberto Juantorena, and santiagueros are proud of their reputation as the most Caribbean and rebellious of Cubans.

The city of Santiago de Cuba had about 507,000 people in 2022, and its municipality, which takes in El Cobre, El Caney, Siboney and other communities, is the most populous in Cuba. It is the capital of Santiago de Cuba province, an important port with an oil refinery, and the seat of the Universidad de Oriente. Built at the head of a bay and hemmed in by mountains, the city spreads over steep slopes, from the old centre around the Parque Céspedes to districts such as Vista Alegre.

The east is poorer than the west, and the crisis is felt hardest here. Power cuts are among the longest in the country, and water and food shortages are common. Hurricane Melissa, which came ashore in the province on 29 October 2025, caused widespread flooding and buried streets in debris; around 992,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in Guantánamo, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba provinces, and two weeks after landfall 60 per cent of the province's power infrastructure was still without power.

Since the United States began blocking fuel shipments to Cuba in early 2026, shortages of fuel, food and medicine have deepened. Migration to Havana and abroad is heavy, and many families depend on remittances.

Eastern cooking has its own identity, and Santiago's signature is congrí, rice cooked with red beans, the eastern version of the national rice-and-beans dish. Pork is the meat of celebration: lechón, a whole pig roasted in the open, is the centrepiece of any fiesta, and chicharrones, fried pork rinds, are sold as a snack. The weekend street fair on Avenida Victoria de Garzón is the place to find them, with Cuban-style fried fish and chicken, all priced in pesos.

Coffee has been grown in the mountains around the city since French planters arrived from Haiti, and strong, sweet coffee in small cups punctuates the day. Fruit, coconut and cacao come from the wider east, and Baracoa, on the far side of the mountains, is the island's chocolate country.

Santiago is the birthplace of Bacardí rum, founded in the city in 1862; the family company left Cuba after the government confiscated its Cuban assets in 1960, but rum remains the local drink. The daiquirí is said to take its name from Daiquirí, a beach community within the municipality. In the evening, santiagueros drink beer in the simple cervecerías along the harbourfront.