Cuba

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country in the Caribbean comprising its eponymous main island along with 4,195 smaller islands, islets and cays, the largest country in the Caribbean by area and third-largest by population, with Havana as its capital and largest city. The territory remained part of the Spanish Empire until the Spanish-American War of 1898, gaining independence in 1902; political instability and military influence, particularly under Fulgencio Batista, culminated in the 1959 Cuban Revolution, when the 26th of July Movement overthrew Batista and established a communist government under Fidel Castro that remains in power. Cuba is a socialist state in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the constitution, the world's only communist country outside Asia, with an authoritarian government that prohibits political opposition; Miguel Diaz-Canel, elected president in 2018 and First Secretary of the Communist Party since 2021, is Cuba's first leader born after the revolution. Its command economy is dominated by tourism and exports of skilled labor, sugar, tobacco and coffee, and it maintains a universal health care system despite low doctor salaries and frequent shortages of essential drugs; a 2023 study estimated 88 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, and the United States embargo against Cuba, ongoing since 1960, is one of the longest-running trade measures in history.