Cuba has several steep mountain ranges.

In 1959, communist leader Fidel Castro took control of the island, establishing a socialist dictatorship. The United States imposed a trade ban in the early 1960s, and limits travel to Cuba (other countries do not). The Soviet Union heavily subsidized Cuba's economy until the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. Since then, the island's economy has been slow to recover.

Cuba is composed mostly of limestone, a soft, porous rock that easily erodes. As a result, the island is honeycombed with caves and has the highest density of caves of any place on earth. There are also steep mountain ranges: the Sierra de los Órganos, the Sierra de Trinidad, and the Sierra Maestras. The Sierra de los Órganos are made up of "mogotes," a set of oddly dome-shaped mountains. Pico Turquino, part of the Sierra Maestras, is Cuba's tallest peak, rising up south of the Guantanamo Valley to about 6,500 feet.
Cuba's tropical climate is moderated by trade winds, and includes a dry season (November to April) and a rainy season (May to October). Hurricanes periodically batter the island in the summer and fall.

UNIQUE PLANTLIFE

Cuba has more than 6,000 plant species, about half of which are found nowhere else. Some of the island's best-known plants include the royal palm (Reistonea regia), which appears on the nation's coat of arms. Some researchers believe there are more than 15 million palms on the island. Other interesting varieties include the rare cork palm (Microcycas calocoma), which is endemic and first appeared when dinosaurs walked the earth, and the big belly palm (Palma barrigona), whose shape matches its name.

Cuba's swamps are renowned for their wide variety of plant and animal species.

In the mountains, dry forests support a wealth of species, including delicate orchids and the elegant butterfly lily (Hedychium coronarium Koenig), the national flower. Mogotes, dome-shaped mounds in the Sierra de los Órganos, have a type of dry forest consisting of semidecidous and evergreen trees. The endemic ceibón tree (Bombacopsis cubensis) and piñón tree (Erythrina cubensis), and the oak tree (Tabebuia calcicola), are just some of the species found there. Pine forests, dominated by the Caribbean pine tree (Pinus caribaea), are abundant in the Sierra de los Órganos and in the northern half of the Isle of Youth. Rainforests also thrive in Cuba, especially in the eastern part of the island.

Along the southern coast, large mangrove swamps provide nursery waters for fish and important habitat for birds. The Zapata Swamp, the largest wetland in Cuba, has a wide range of vegetation, ranging from aquatic plants to plants typically found in semideserts. Species in the swamp include: water hyacinths (Ichhornia crassipes), fragrant water lilies (Nymphaea odorata), water lettuce (Pistis stratiotes), sawgrass (Claudium jamaicense), and sugarcane plume grass (Erianthus giganteus).