The Cuban tourist industry, a dynamic segment of the domestic economy, promotes the diversity of its tourist options in order to make a better use of the country’s historic, cultural and natural resources.

Apart from the traditional sun and beach options, the values of the Cuban environment, full of beautiful landscapes and a particular flora and fauna, play a key role in the development of tourism.

In this sense, the island offers 14 national parks, 25 ecological reserves and six biosphere reserves, including more than 16,500 fauna species.

The Viñales valley, located on the western area of the country, stands out for its majestic natural beauty composed of hills with vertical hillsides and rounded summits, which in some cases are above 400 meters.

This important natural site of the Pinar del Rio province, declared as National Monument and World Cultural Landscape by UNESCO, also stands out for the exclusiveness of its flora and fauna, and the existence of several cave systems which are regarded among the most beautiful and largest systems in Latin America.

Meanwhile, the central-southern area of the island has the Ramsar site and the Ciénaga de Zapata, the largest swamp in the Caribbean islands, which holds more than a thousand flora species and an already internationally famous crocodile farm.

In central Cuba, El Nicho, located at 46 kilometers from the city of Cienfuegos, is one of the most interesting places of the Guamuhaya mountain range due to its system of waterfalls which emerge from the rivers and springs of the area.

The Carbuni waterfall, with a height of 64 meters and the Martín Infierno cave and its 60-meter stalactite –among other attractions- are available for the enjoyment of tourists who arrive in the central region of the island which also holds the Escambray, the most important mountain range of the area.

The highest mountains in the country are in the Sierra Maestra, located in eastern Cuba, which stands out for the richness of the National Park, by the same name, where history, legends and traditions merge with the splendorous beauty of nature.

According to experts, there are more than 10,000 caves in the country, many of them with about 25 million years of evolution, mainly the Santo Tomás system which is composed of more than 45 kilometers of underground galleries.

The combination of nature with a beach or city leisure option contributes an added value to the tourist product which is supported by the visitors’ growing interest in knowing about the Cuban countryside and enjoying an almost virgin environment which encourages the sense of adventure.