Habana Map

• All Havana residents have free access to health care in hospitals, local polyclinics, and neighbourhood family doctors who serve on average 170 families each, which is one of the highest doctor-to-patient ratio in the world. However, the health system has suffered from shortages of supplies, equipment and medications caused by the US embargo and the ending of the Soviet Union subsidies in the early 1990s. Nevertheless, Havana’s infant mortality rate in 2009 was 4.9 per 1,000 live births, 5.12 in the country as a whole, which is lower than many developed nations, and the lowest in the developing world. Administration of the health care system for the nation is centred largely in Havana. Hospitals in Havana are run by the national government, and citizens are assigned hospitals and clinics to which they may go for attention.

• Havana lies on the northern coast of Cuba, south of the Florida Keys, where the Gulf of Mexico joins the Caribbean Sea (map at right). The city extends mostly westward and southward from the bay, which is entered through a narrow inlet and which divides into three main harbours: Marimelena, Guanabacoa, and Atarés. The sluggish Almendares River traverses the city from south to north, entering the Straits of Florida a few miles west of the bay.

• The low hills on which the city lies rise gently from the deep blue waters of the straits. A noteworthy elevation is the 200-foot-high (60-metre) limestone ridge that slopes up from the east and culminates in the heights of La Cabaña and El Morro, the sites of colonial fortifications overlooking the eastern bay. Another notable rise is the hill to the west that is occupied by the University of Havana and the Prince's Castle. Outside the city, higher hills rise on the west and east.

• Old Havana, (La Habana Vieja in Spanish), contains the core of the original city of Havana, with more than 2,000 hectares it exhibits almost all the Western architectural styles seen in the New World. La Habana Vieja was founded by the Spanish in 1519 in the natural harbor of the Bay of Havana. It became a stopping point for the treasure laden Spanish Galleons on the crossing between the New World and the Old World. In the 17th century it was one of the main shipbuilding centers. The city was built in baroque and neoclassic style. Many buildings have fallen in ruin but a number are being restored. The narrow streets of old Havana contain many buildings, accounting for perhaps as many as one-third of the approximately 3,000 buildings found in Old Havana.

• Old Havana is the ancient city formed from the port, the official center and the Plaza de Armas. Alejo Carpentier called Old Havana the place "de las columnas" (of the columns). The Cuban government is taking many steps to preserve and to restore Old Havana, through the Office of the city historian, directed by Eusebio Leal. Old Havana and its fortifications were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1982.

• By the end of 2009, 19.1% of the population of Cuba lived in Havana. According to the census of 2009, the population was 2,141,993 (6,139 less from the previous year), including 1,032,687 men and 1,109,306 women. The city has an average life expectancy of 76.81 years at birth. In 2009, there were 1,924 people living with HIV/AIDS in the city, 78.9% of these are men, and 21.1% being women.

• According to the 1981 Havana's official race census (the Cuban census and similar studies use the term "skin colour" instead of "race"),

• There are few mestizos contrary to many other Latin American countries, because the Native Indian population was virtually wiped out in colonial times.

• The city’s population grows slowly as a result of balanced development policies, low birth rate, its relatively high rate of emigration abroad, and its low rate of domestic migration. Because of the city and country’s low birth rate and high life expectancy, its age structure is similar to a developed country, with Havana having an even higher proportion of elderly than the country as a whole.

• The Cuban government controls the movement of people into Havana on the grounds that the Havana metropolitan area (home to nearly 20% of the country's population) is overstretched in terms of land use, water, electricity, transportation, and other elements of the urban infrastructure. There is a population of internal migrants to Havana nicknamed "palestinos" (Palestinians), sometimes considered a racist term, these mostly hail from the eastern region of Oriente.

• The development and opportunity offered by Cuba in the 1920s-1950s, and Havana in particular, made the capital a magnet for immigration during the Republic period, mostly from various regions of Spain.

• The city's significant minority of Chinese, mostly Cantonese ancestors, were brought in the mid-1800s by Spanish settlers via the Philippines with work contracts and after completing 8-year contracts many Chinese immigrants settled permanently in Havana. Before the revolution the Chinese population counted to over 200,000, today, Chinese ancestors could count up to 100,000. Chinese born/ native Chinese (mostly Cantonese as well) are around 400 presently. There are some 3,000 Russians living in the city, as reported by the Russian Embassy in Havana, they're mostly women that married Cubans who had gone to the Soviet Union to study. Havana also shelters other non-Cuban population of an unknown size. There is a population of several thousand North African teen and pre-teen refugees.

• Roman Catholics form the largest religious group in Havana. The Jewish community in Havana has reduced after the Revolution from once having embraced more than 15,000 Jews, many of whom had fled Nazi persecution and subsequently left Cuba to Miami or returned to Israel after Castro took to power in 1959. The city once had five synagogues, but only three remain (one Orthodox, one Conservative and one Sephardic), Beth Shalom Grand Synagogue is one of them. In February 2007 the New York Times estimated that there were about 1,500 known Jews living in Havana.

• During the Republic Period, the city was renowned for an excellent network of public transportation by bus, trams and taxi. A subway system modeled after that of New York City was proposed in 1921.

• In the 1980s there were also plans for a Metro system in Havana similar to Moscow's, as a result of the Soviet Union influence in Cuba at the time. The studies of geology and finance made ​​by Cuban and Soviet specialists were already well advanced in the 1980s. The Cuban press showed the construction project, and even the course route, linking municipalities and neighborhoods in the capital. In the late 1980s the project had already began, each mile of track was worth a million dollars at the time, but with the fall of the Soviet Union the project was later dropped.The Havana public buses are carried out by two divisions, Omnibus Metropolitanos (OM) and Metrobus.

• The Metrobus serves the inner-city urban area, with a maximum distance of 20 km. Its fleet have been modernized, but formerly in 2006 were known as "camellos" (camels). The camellos operated on the busiest routes and were trailers transformed into buses known as camels, so called for their two humps. The Metrobus consists of 17 main lines, identified with the letter "P" with long-distance routes. The stops are usually 800–1,000 metres (2,600–3,300 ft), with frequent buses in peak hours, about every 10 minutes. It uses large modern articulated buses, such as the Chinese-made Yutong brand, Russian-made Liaz, or MAZ of Belarus.

• The Omnibus Metropolitanos (OM), known as the Metrobus feeder line, connects the adjacent towns and cities in the metropolitan area with the city center, with a maximum distance of 40 km. This division has one of the most used and largest urban bus fleets in the country, its fleet is is made up of mostly new Chinese Yutong buses, but as well older Busscar buses. In 2008 the Cuban government invested millions of dollars for the acquisition of 1,500 new Yutong urban buses.