Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, North America
Year 1515 latitude: 20° 1' longitude: -75° 50' Period Initiator(s) Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar Planning organization Spain Nationality initiator(s) Spanish Designer(s) / Architect(s) Design organization Inhabitants 446,223 (2009) Target population Town website Town related links http://www.guije.com/pueblo/municipios/osantiago/index.htm Literature type of New Town: > scale of autonomy New-Town-in-Town Satellite New Town Company Town > client Private Corporation Public Corporation > policy Capital Decentralization Industrialization Resettlement Economic
Santiago de Cuba was founded in 1515 and it is one of the seven towns that Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (conquerer and governer of Cuba for Spain) founded on Cuba. The town was projected in a bay that is connected with the Caribbean Sea. The town became, and still is, important as a port. Santiago was destroyed by fire in 1516 and was immediately rebuild. Later spanish colonial cities follow the principles that are determined in the the Laws of the Indies that was written in 1523. This town therefore couldn't have followed these exact principles. Though, like the towns that were build according to the principles written down in the Laws of the Indies, Santiago de Cuba has a central square where the main church and the town hall are to be found and the streets follow a gridiron. Of the seven colonial towns Velazquez founded, Santiago de Cuba comes closest to the standardized Spanish colonial town. Santiago de Cuba was the Spanish capital of Cuba, from 1522 until 1589. Today, the city is still the capital of the region, and the second city of the country. source: Ellen van Holstein
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