Santiago de Cuba Stad

With 420,000 inhabitants Santiago de Cuba is Cuba's second largest city and a strong rival to Havana in literature, music and politics. During the 19th century French settlers arrived and contributed to the melting pot of Haitian, African and Spanish influences that have made this Cuba's most Caribbean city. Additionally, La Universidad del Oriente is one of Cuba's leading educational institutions.
Santiago de Cuba has a thick Spanish colonial air without the American highrise buildings from the 1950s that one finds in Havana. Santiago de Cuba lies in a partly submerged valley of the Sierra Maestra and the city's large natural harbor has made it an important port for almost five centuries.
Historically Santiago de Cuba has long been the second most important city on the island after Havana, and still remains the second largest. It is on a bay connected to the Caribbean Sea and is an important sea port.
The local citadel of San Pedro de la Roca is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as "the most complete, best-preserved example of Spanish-American military architecture, based on Italian and Renaissance design principles"