Moa, Cuba

Moa, one of the youngest cities in Cuba, was founded in 1939. As of 2024, the municipality had a population of 92,852.^[1][2]

Moa is an industrial city at the eastern end of Cuba's Holguín Province. It is essentially mountainous with a narrow semillana strip on the Atlantic coast, its northern limit, which has the main population and conglomerates. Its geography extends throughout the Sagua-Baracoa mountain range, which is part of the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park. It is rich in fauna and flora and has many native species.

It is the Cuban capital of mining and nickel industry and is the most stable and economically-important part in the country. The word Moa has numerous meanings, but it is known that the Cuban aboriginals called it that. It is believed that in Arahuaca, the language of the South America, and Caribbean natives, it means "Place of the waters." Its two nickel factories of nickel are the city's main source of economic wealth and has an important contribution to the Cuban gross domestic product and makes the country one of the most impoirtant producers in the world. Ernesto Che Guevara and Pedro Sotto Alba Factories lead the country'sproduction of metals. It is also considered one of the oldest places for logging in the country. Its mineral wealth (ceolite, rare earths, and iron), the high specializtion of the area, and its human capital areits main economic reserves.

Made up of humid forests, pine forests, and carrascals, the vegetation of Moa is its most lively area towards the mountainous strip. Its humid forests include ocuje, copey, yellow júcaro, yagruma, maracana palm, and pujúa. Likewise, 85 percent of the land, some 60,000 hectares, is occupied by mostly-natural forests, where pine and carrascal grow. Most of the area is mountainous since Moa is located in the middle of the Nipe-Sagua-Baracoa Mountain System. There are places over 1000 m above sea level, the highest of which is the El Toldo peak, in the Moa blades, with an altitude of 1170 m and has interesting varieties of ferns.

Unlike most municipalities in the country with a Catholic tradition or a practitioner of Afro-Cuban rites, Moa is characterized by a strong presence of churches with an evangelical tradition, mostly Baptist and Pentecostal.^[3]