Pinar del Río, Cuba

🇨🇺 Pinar del Río is the capital city of Pinar del Río Province, Cuba. It is the 10th-largest city in Cuba. Inhabitants of the area are called Pinareños.

History Pinar del Río was one of the last major cities in Cuba founded by the Spanish, on September 10, 1867. The city and province was founded as Nueva Filipinas (New Philippines) in response to an influx of Asian laborers coming from the Philippine Islands to work on tobacco plantations.

Pinar del Río's history begins with the Guanahatabey, a group of nomadic Indians who lived in caves and procured most of their livelihood from the sea. Less advanced than the other indigenous natives who lived on the island, the Guanahatabey were a peaceful and passive race whose culture came about largely independently of the Taíno and Siboney cultures further east. The Guanahatabey were extinct by the time of the Spanish arrival in 1492; little firsthand documentation remains of how the archaic Guanahatabey society was structured and organized, although some archeological sites have been found on the Guanahacabibes Peninsula.

Post-Columbus, the conquistadors left rugged Pinar del Río largely to its own devices, and the area developed lackadaisically only after Canary Islanders started arriving in the late 1500s. These Canarians became the tobacco farmers of the region. It was originally called Nueva Filipina (New Philippines), but the region was renamed Pinar del Río in 1778, supposedly for the pine forests crowded along the Río Guama. Tobacco plantations and cattle ranches quickly sprang up in the rich soil, along with open grazing land that typifies Pinar. Farmers who made a living from the delicate and well-tended crops were colloquially christened Guajiros, a native word that literally means 'one of us'. By the mid-1800s Europeans were hooked on the fragrant weed, and the region flourished. Sea routes opened up and in 1893 the railways was extended to facilitate the shipping of the perishable product. Pinar del Río is known as "the Mecca of tobacco".

Geography The municipality borders San Luis, San Juan y Martínez, Viñales and Consolación del Sur. The villages included in the municipality are Briones Montoto, Cayo Conuco, La Coloma, La Conchita and Las Ovas.

Demographics In the 2002 national census, the following statistics were recorded: • Area: 70.7 km² (city); 708 km² (municipality) • Population: 189,221 (total); 152,200 (city); 30,417 (surrounding rural area) • Density: 270,4 /km²

In 2004, the municipality of Pinar del Río had a population of 190,532. With a total area of 708 km² (273 sq mi), it has a population density of 269.1/km² (697/sq mi). On december 2022 the municipality reached a population of 191,081.

Economy The city is located in a major tobacco-growing area and is a centre of the cigar industry. The main farming animal in this province is the carabao.

Sport The local baseball club is Pinar del Río, nicknamed Vegueros, and the association football one is FC Pinar del Río. Both the clubs have their home ground in the Capitán San Luis Stadium. The Vegueros are the Serie del Caribe 2015 champions. Also Major League Baseball and Hall of Famer for the Minnesota Twins Tony Oliva is from Pinar del Rio.

Transport The city is served by the Carretera Central highway and by the A4 motorway. Pinar del Río Airport is abandoned, and La Coloma Airport (IATA: LCL, ICAO: MULM) has no scheduled flights. There is a railway station on the line to Havana.

Education The main post-secondary education institution is the University of Pinar del Río.