Tradition states that the day the town of San Cristóbal de La Habana was founded was November 16, 1519, when it was officially founded in the name of the metropolis.
Hispaniola, close to a sheltered and beautiful round bay, in the northwest of the country. Under a ceiba -an autochthonous tree today revered- the first Cabildo was held and the religious baptism ceremony of that city was officiated, declared on December 14, 1982 as Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
From that area, marked since the beginning of the 19th century with a monument building called Templete, the rigorous political, military, religious and administrative institutions began to be built around it, the city began to quickly spread its urbanism, favored by its geographical location of its coastline, quickly converted into a port and headquarters of the most famous shipyards in the New World. A
condition that made it a crossroads of maritime routes and later won the recognition as Key to the Americas, reflected in the first shield of the nation.
The city, which has been the capital of the country since the last quarter of the 18th century, reached its prosperity enormously, but not easily. He had to face the onslaught of hurricanes, storms, epidemics of serious diseases, explosions in the port and continuous attacks by pirates and corsairs that devastated the Caribbean, such as the terrifying one carried out by Jacques de Sores in the 16th century, until the capture of Havana by the English, who subjugated the city for about a year in the 18th century, and the iron policy of inhumane colonization. Precisely its vulnerability to attacks by vandals from the sea and enemies of the Spanish Crown led to the creation of a defensive system based on fortresses and castles from the 16th century, built with the best military techniques of its time, which made it the best-defended city in Hispanic America.
Today, this formidable network, still standing and converted into museums, historical parks, cultural centers, are part of the treasures and tangible memory of that city, together with some of its colonial temples, among which the Havana Cathedral, multiple and charming squares, old stately homes, especially palaces and institutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, which keep an invaluable wealth of testimonials of the life, development and customs of that city and even the nation.
It is true that present-day Havana, with unparalleled values, exceeded the original colonial nucleus, but its inhabitants still revere the cobbled streets and the neighborhoods of the part framed in its birth. On December 7, 2014 in Dubai, within the New 7 Wonder Cities initiative, as one of the seven wonder cities of the world for representing the global diversity of urban society. A recognition that owes much to the preservation of its historic center, among the best preserved on the planet.
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