Batanabo

Batabanó lies south of Havana, near the broad gulf that bears its name. The low coast faces a shallow sea dotted with the cays of the Canarreos archipelago. An Indigenous settlement was remembered here before the Spanish conquest; in 1559 Havana’s council granted the cattle estate of Batabanó, and a town was founded in 1688. Its anchorage became a southern port for communication between Havana and other Cuban coastal towns.