Camagueey

Camagüey was founded as Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe in 2 February 1514, by Spanish colonists led by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at a location now known as Nuevitas on the northern coast. It was one of the seven original settlements (villas) founded in Cuba by the Spanish. The settlement was moved inland in 1528 to the site of a Taíno village named Camagüey. The new city was built with a confusing lay-out of winding alleys. There are many blind alleys and forked streets that lead to squares of different sizes. One explanation is that this was done by design, to make the city easier to defend from any raiders; by the same version, the reason that there is only one exit from the city was that should pirates ever return and succeed in entering the city, it would be possible for local inhabitants to entrap and kill them. …

Located on a plain in the middle of its province, the municipality borders with Vertientes, Florida, Esmeralda, Sierra de Cubitas, Minas, Sibanicú and Jimaguayú.

The symbol of the city of Camagüey is the clay pot or tinajón, used to capture rain water to be used later, keeping it fresh. Clay pots are everywhere, some as small as a hand, some large enough for two people to stand up in, either as monuments or for real use. A local legend is that if you drink water from a "tinajón", you will stay in Camagüey ("Quien tome agua del tinajón, en Camagüey se queda"), meaning that if you meet a Camagüeyana girl, you will fall in love with her and never leave. The main secondary education institutions are the University of Camagüey and the Instituto Pedagógico de Camagüey. The Big Clay Jars or Tinajones were storage jars used to transport wine, oil and grain in the city and introduced by the Spaniards during the early-modern times as the solution to the city's water shortage, placed beneath gutters so that they could fill the water. …

In 2022, the municipality of Camagüey had a population of 333,251. With a total area of 1,106 km2 (427 sq mi), it has a population density of 300/km2 (780/sq mi).