The climate is not severe. The mean annual temperature is 77°; the range from hottest to coldest 82° to 71°; the highest record, 100.6°, the lowest 49.6°. The mean rainfall is 54 inches.
Havana is the market of western Cuba, the head of the island's banking and commercial interests and the emporium of the West Indies. Besides being the centre of the island railway system and of a great domestic shipping trade, especially with Santiago, it is the focus of a vast foreign commerce with Spain, France, England and the United States, regular ocean lines running weekly to the first three and semi weekly to the latter, besides others to the other West Indies. It has excellent covered wharves and a capacious dry-dock to aid this. Regla, on the opposite side of the bay, contains the sugar wharves and railway termini. For an analysis of foreign trade and figures showing its increase in volume and the changes in distribution of exports and imports, see the article CUBA. Havana's exports are chiefly of sugar, tobacco, cigars and cigarettes; the imports, flour, rice, lard and other foods, cotton and metals. Its
manufactures are mainly tobacco products; its cigar factories, of which there are over 100 of the first rank, are the largest in the world, one covering an entire square. It also manu factures confectionery, perfumes, rum, etc. The new electric street railway system is one of the finest of its kind, with 36 miles of track.
History.—Havana was founded here (trans ferred from an older site) by Diego de Velas quez in 1519, and called by him "the key of the New World.° Burned by buccaneers, in 1528, it was rebuilt and made the chief naval station of Spain in this hemisphere, twice sacked in 1555 and 1563, it was a storm centre of wars and piracies for two centuries. In 1762 the English captured it, but restored it to Spain the next year. In 1802 it was partly. burned, but under Governor Tacfm it was rebuilt from a straw-thatched wooden town to a city of brick and stone. For its late history, see CUBA. Pop. 350,000.