IV. RESEARCH NOTES THE POPULATION OF CUBA

Cuba is, by far, the largest and most important island of the AntUles. It has an area of more than 44 thousand square miles (approximately one half that of Great Britain) and about equal to that of all other islands of the West Indies combined. Cuba clearly has the largest population, foreign trade, and gross national product of any country of the Antilles or Central America. It is not only important because of its population and economic production, but because of its fundamentally distinct approach to the solution of the pressing socio-economic problems that plague Latin America. Its endeavor to secure its objectives via communism combined with its proximity to the United States has been cause for continued political and military tensions throughout the past decade and has brought the world perhaps closer to World War III, in October 1962 during the "Cuban missile crisis," than at any other time. Cuba is also somewhat unique from a demographic point of view. There are certain singular features that render the island a quite distinctive flavor: