Jardines de la Reina
Encyclopedia
Jardines de la Reina is an archipelago in the southern part of Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

, in the provinces of Camagüey
Camagüey Province
Camagüey is the largest of the provinces of Cuba. Its capital is Camagüey. Other towns include Florida and Nuevitas.-Geography:Camagüey is mostly low lying, with no major hills or mountain ranges passing through the province...

 and Ciego de Ávila
Ciego de Ávila Province
Ciego de Ávila is one of the provinces of Cuba, and was previously part of Camagüey Province. Its capital is Ciego de Ávila, which lies on the Carretera Central , and the second city is Morón, further north....

.

It was named by Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

 to honour the Queen of Spain. Jardines de la Reina was established as a national park
National park
A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...

 . With a surfaces of 2170 km² (837.8 sq mi), it is one of Cuba's largest protected area.

Geography

It is located in the Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....

, between the Gulf of Ana Maria (north-west), Gulf of Guacanayabo
Gulf of Guacanayabo
The Gulf of Guacanayabo is a bay along the southern coast of Cuba, bordered by Granma and Las Tunas provinces. It is located at .The largest port on the bay is Manzanillo, ad to the north-west, the gulf is bordered by the Jardines de la Reina archipellago...

 (south) and Caballones Channel (west). It extends on a general north-west to south-east direction, paralleling the Cuban coast for 150 km (93.2 mi) from Cayo Breton to Cayos Mordazo. Cuba's second largest archipelago (smaller only than Jardines del Rey
Jardines del Rey
Jardines del Rey is an archipelago located off the northern coast of the island of Cuba, in the northern parts of the provinces of Ciego de Ávila and Camagüey. It is developed on the coral reef system that lines Cuba's shore, between the Atlantic and the Bay of Buena Vista and Bay of Jiguey...

), it is formed by more than 600 cay
Cay
A cay , also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island formed on the surface of coral reefs. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans , where they provide habitable and agricultural land for hundreds of thousands of people...

s and islands. Other cays in the archipelago include Caguamas, Cayos Cinco Balas, Cayo de Las Doce Leguas, Cayo Anclitas, Cayo Algodon Grande, Cayos Pingues and Cayo Granada.

Fishing

The archipelago is a popular destination for diving
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...

 and fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

. It used to be one of Fidel Castro's favorite fishing spots. Species of fish found here include Cubera snapper
Cubera snapper
The cubera snapper is a species of fish in the Lutjanidae family. It is found in Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti,...

, Bonefish
Bonefish
The bonefish is the type species of the Albulidae family, or bonefishes in order Albuliformes. It is amphidromous, living in inshore tropical waters, moving onto shallow mudflats to feed with the incoming tide, and retreating to deeper water as the tide ebbs...

, Yellowfin grouper
Yellowfin grouper
The yellowfin grouper is a coral reef fish native to the western Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. It is generally a denizen of the deeper reef areas but it may venture into shallower waters, especially during the cooler seasons.The fish is variable in color but is usually similar in...

, Black grouper
Black grouper
The black grouper is one of the best known of the large group of Perciform fish called groupers.-Description:The black grouper is a large marine fish, growing up to 150 centimetres in length and 100 kilograms in weight. It has an olive or gray body, with black blotches and brassy spots...

, Goliath grouper
Goliath grouper
The Atlantic goliath grouper or itajara , commonly known as the Jewfish is a large saltwater fish of the grouper family found primarily in shallow tropical waters among coral and artificial reefs at depths anywhere from 15 to 165 feet...

 as well as Strombus gigas
Strombus gigas
Lobatus gigas, commonly known as the queen conch, is a species of large edible sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family of true conchs, the Strombidae...

, the large caribbean conch
Conch
A conch is a common name which is applied to a number of different species of medium-sized to large sea snails or their shells, generally those which are large and have a high spire and a siphonal canal....

 and Whale shark
Whale shark
The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow-moving filter feeding shark, the largest extant fish species. The largest confirmed individual had a length of and a weight of more than , but unconfirmed claims report considerably larger whale sharks...

.

See also

  • Geography of Cuba
    Geography of Cuba
    Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean Sea. Cuba has a total area of . It has of coastline and of land borders — all figures including the United States territory at Guantánamo Bay, where the U.S...



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