Cuba

(Please note that I have been trying to profile one country per day in an effort to better educate myself about the world we live in. I am sharing the facts I find most interesting because like all bloggers I just assume that what interests me also interests you.)



- Cuba has been a communist country since Fidel Castro took over in 1959. Castro is the longest lived dictator in the world (a fact I hope changes soon - and yes I mean what that implies).

- Cuba has an area of 110,860 sq km (which makes it just slightly smaller than Pennsylvania) but it has 3,735 km of coastline (compare that to California which has 1,352 km of coastline). Just 90 miles south of Florida - Cuba should be a logical vacation destination for US but instead they are run by a Communist despot who has placed his people in a state of abject poverty.

- The US has a naval base at Guantanamo Bay which is leased from Cuba but is considered US soil as long as the base is there (if that makes sense).

- Cuba has a population of 11 million (which gives it a population density of about 101 people per sq km). The median age is 34 and the life expectancy at birth is 77-years. The per capita GDP is $2,900 (compare that to Guatemala where 75% of the population is below the poverty line and their per capita GDP is $3,900).

- For some reason (sugar? cigars?) - the Netherlands recieves more goods from Cuba than any other country. Approximately 19% of the goods from Cuba go to the Dutch.

- Luis Tiant is from Cuba and he should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame (I will argue this because I'm a Red Sox fan - don't try logic on me with this one).

- Robert Redford was in a movie called Havana and it wasn't half bad - Sean Connery was in a movie called Cuba that wasn't half good.

- Cuba gets the absolute worst rankings from Freedom House in terms of political rights and civil liberties.