Cienfuegos Bay () is a bay in the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

located in

Cienfuegos Province Cienfuegos () is one of the provinces of Cuba. The capital city of the province is also called Cienfuegos and was founded by French settlers in 1819. Overview Until 2011, Cienfuegos was the smallest province in Cuba (excluding the city of H ...

on the southern coast of

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. It has served as a harbor for boats for many years. It has two of the most important ports in the country, one of which is the city of

Cienfuegos Cienfuegos (), capital of Cienfuegos Province, is a city on the southern coast of Cuba. It is located about from Havana and has a population of 178,368 in 2022. Since the late 1960s, Cienfuegos has become one of Cuba's main industrial centers, ...

, the capital of the province.

History

On his second voyage to the Americas,

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

visited the bay in 1494. The first permanent settlements occurred in 1738. The Jagua Fortress was erected by King

Philip V of Spain Philip V (; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was List of Spanish monarchs, King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724 and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign (45 years and 16 days) is the longest in the ...

in 1742 to protect the bay from pirates who prowled the Caribbean coast in those days. They used it as a refuge at landfall, on their way to the city of Cienfuegos.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cienfuegos Bay Bays of Cuba Geography of Cuba Geography of Cienfuegos Province