Santiago emanates Cuban spirit and vigor. Around the bay overlooking the Caribbean, a cultural, economic and religious center grew up, which earned this town, founded in 1514, the name of the pearl of eastern Cuba. Its commerce and social life make it a reference of identity and forge of a diverse culture that lives alongside its myth. The mountain range of the Sierra Maestra, the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre church and the Santa Ifigenia cemetery are points close to the valley where the city and its port are located, whose relief makes it a genuine natural amphitheater.

Founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in 1515 southeast of the island, the settlement of Santiago de Cuba is located at the bottom of the bay with the same name, in an undulated valley flanked by the Sierra Maestra mountain range in a sort of natural amphitheatre that determines the indissoluble city-landscape relationship. As the seat of the Spanish colonial government, the most important officials and the main institutions for its administration were found here. In 1522 the original settlement was given the rank of city as the seat of the bishopric and its church was consecrated to cathedral. The initial economic prosperity was related to the export of gold and then the development of trade taking advantage of the natural conditions of the nearby bay. The exhaustion of the gold reserves, the new navigation routes through the Bahamas Canal and the establishment of the Fleet System and unique port of call in 1561 conditioned a long period of decay which ended with the official relocation of the seat of the government to Havana in 1607.

The city shows a singular urban image that responds to the relationship between the irregular layout and the rugged terrain of the area, determining the presence of undulating streets, steps and the several levels on the façades. 

Declared National Monument in 1978, the city’s historic centre is characterised by great variety given by the coexistence of patrimonial buildings in several styles which, thanks to the integration of the structures to the existing volumes, to the respect to the façade line and to the regularity of the heights, manages to preserve an amazingly homogeneous character. Santiago’s colonial architecture bears witness to an unquestionable ability to adapt to the climate, the topography, and the seismicity of the territory; and the development of its typology allows to appreciate a stylistic influence that went through the Moorish, the baroque and the neoclassical. These were followed in the course of time by valuable examples of eclecticism, art nouveau, art deco, modern monumental, rationalism and industrial architecture, which give value to the urban environment. 

Santiago treasures two sites on the World Heritage List of UNESCO: the Castle of Saint Peter of the Rock and the archaeological landscape of the coffee plantations in the southeast of Cuba. It also has two other heritage sites: the Archaeological Park as Cultural Underwater Heritage in the area of the naval battle of 1898, which covers some 100 kilometres along the coastline and was declared a National Monument in 2015; and the Cultural Associative Landscape, which brings together religion, mining and slavery, location of the very important church dedicated to Cuba’s patron saint, the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre.

The city also preserves the “Tumba Francesa”, declared World Heritage too by UNESCO as Intangible Heritage, and it is famous for its popular festivities and the hospitality of its people. Recognised as the cradle of son, trova, bolero, guaracha, conga and other musical genres, Santiago is also the Heroic City, symbol of national rebelliousness and physical frame of transcendental historical events in the struggle for its definitive liberation. Its Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, a National Monument since 1979, keeps the remains of the nation’s most important heroes and most illustrious people.