A nice cover from United Nations (Geneva Office), depicting 3 stamps with different UNESCO sites in Cuba. From the left to the right:
Trinidad and Valley de los Ingenios, Old Havana and its fortifications and Viñales Valley.
The city of Trinidad was founded in the early 16th century. In 1518, Hernán Cortés began his expedition to conquer Mexico from the port at Trinidad. The city prospered throughout the colonial period in large part due to the success of the local sugar industry. The adjacent Valley de los Ingenios was the origin of the Cuban sugar industry, which emerged in the 18th century. It is home to numerous cane sugar mills, as well as cattle ranches and tobacco plantations. it has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1988, because of its historical importance as a center of the sugar trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. Trinidad is one of the best-preserved cities in the Caribbean from the time when the sugar trade was the main industry in the region.
Old Havana (Spanish: La Habana Vieja) is the city-center (downtown) and one of the 15 municipalities forming Havana, Cuba. It has the second highest population density in the city and contains the core of the original city of Havana. The positions of the original Havana city walls are the modern boundaries of Old Havana. In 1982, Old Havana was inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List, because of its unique Baroque and neoclassical architecture, its fortifications, and its historical importance as a stop on the route to the New World. A safeguarding campaign was launched a year later to restore the authentic character of the buildings.
The village of Viñales was founded in 1875 after the expansion of tobacco cultivation in the surrounding valley. The Valley features a karst topography, vernacular architecture, and traditional cultivation methods. The Valley was also the site of various military engagements in the Cuban War of Independence and Cuban Revolution. In 1999, the valley was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a cultural landscape because of its use of traditional tobacco-growing techniques.
