The demographic characteristics of Cuba are known through census which have been conducted and analyzed by different bureaus since 1774. The National Office of Statistics of and Information of Cuba (ONEI) is doing it since 1953. The most recent census was conducted in September 2012. The population of Cuba at the 2012 census was nearly 11.2 million. It has since declined to an estimated 9.75 million in 2024.
Although not a census, in July 2024, Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, deputy head of the ONEI, presented data on Cuba's effective population to the deputies. According to ONEI data, as of December 31, 2023, the effective Cuban population was 10,055,968 people.
According to the 2012 census, the population density at that time was 101 inhabitants per square kilometer, and the overall life expectancy in Cuba was 78 years. The population has always increased from one census to the next in the 20th century, with the exception of the 2012 census, when the count decreased by 10,000. The 2024 data by ONEI seems to corroborate that trend.
From 1740 to 2020 Cuba's birth rate has surpassed its death rate. Cuba is currently in the fourth stage of demographic transition. In terms of age structure, the population is dominated (71.1%) by the 15- to 64-year-old segment. The median age of the population is 39.5, making it the oldest in the Americas, and the gender ratio of the total population is 0.99 males per female.
According to the 2002 census, Cuba's population was 11,177,743, whereas the 2012 census numbered the population at 11,167,325. There was a drop between the 2002 and 2012 censuses which was the first drop in Cuba's population since Cuba's war of independence. This drop was due to low fertility and emigration, as during this time (fiscal years 2003 to 2012), 42,028 Cubans received legal permanent residence in the United States. Consequently, Cuba is also the oldest country in the Americas in terms of median age, due to a high amount of emigration by younger Cubans to the U.S. In the last few years before the end of the wet feet, dry feet policy on January 12, 2017, the number of Cubans moving to the United States significantly outnumbered the natural increase during those years.
Cuban policy responses to its aging population include increases in paid maternity benefits, improving access to daycares, and establishing the Service Network for Non-fertile Couples to provide treatment for infertility.
As of 2025, Cuba has the oldest population in Latin America.
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According to the previous censuses, the Chinese were counted as white. The ancestry of Cubans comes from many sources:
During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century, large waves of Spanish immigrants from Canary Islands, Catalonia, Andalusia, Galicia, and Asturias emigrated to Cuba. Between 1820 and 1898, a total of 508,455 people left Spain, and more than 750,000 Spanish immigrants left for Cuba between 1899 and 1930, with many returning to Spain. There are 139,851 Spanish citizens living in Cuba as of 1 January 2018.
The Slave trade brought Africans to Cuba during its early history: Between 1842 and 1873, 221,000 African slaves entered Cuba.
People of the Americas:
Other European people that have contributed include:
People from Asia:
Between 1842 and 1873, 124,800 Chinese arrived.
An autosomal study from 2014 has found out the genetic average ancestry in Cuba to be 72% European, 20% African and 8% Native American with different proportions depending on the self-reported ancestry (White, Mulatto or Mestizo, and Black):
A 1995 study done on the population of Pinar del Rio, found that 50% of the Mt-DNA lineages (female lineages) could be traced back to Europeans, 46% to Africans and 4% to Native Americans. This figure is consistent with both the historical background of the region, and the current demographics of it.
According to another study in 2008, the Native American contribution to present-day Cubans accounted for 33% of the maternal lineages, whereas Africa and Eurasia contributed 45% and 22% of the lineages, respectively. Haplogroup A2 is the main Native American haplogroup in Cuba (21.9% of the total sample), accounting for 67% of the Native American mtDNA gene pool. Regarding Y-chromosome haplogroups (male lineages), 78.8% of the sequences found in Cubans are of West Eurasian origin, 19.7% of African origin and 1.5% of East Asian origin. Among the West Eurasian fraction, the vast majority of individuals belong to West European haplogroup R1b. The African lineages found in Cubans have a Western (haplogroups E1, E2, E1b1a) and Northern (E1b1b-M81) African origin. The "Berber" haplogroup E1b1b1b (E-M81), is found at a frequency of 6.1%.
According to Fregel et al. (2009), the fact that autochthonous male North African E-M81 and female U6 lineages from the Canaries have been detected in Cuba and Iberoamerica, demonstrates that Canary Islanders with indigenous ancestors actively participated in the American colonization.
Spanish is the official language of Cuba, as specified by the Constitution of Cuba. Of all the regional variations of Spanish, Cuban Spanish is most similar to, and originates largely from, Canary Island Spanish. This is a consequence of Canarian migration, which in the 19th and early 20th century was heavy and continuous. There were also migrations of Galicians and Asturians as well, but they did not impact Cuban Spanish to the same degree. Contact in Cuba between Yoruba language dialects and Spanish, starting in the 19th century, led to the creation of a new language called Anagó.
Many of the Cuban replacements for Madrid vocabulary stems from Canarian lexicon. For example, ' (bus), as opposed to ' in Madrid, originated in the Canaries and is onomatopoeia from the sound of a klaxon (wah-wah!). Another example of a Canarian word is the verb (to fight). In Madrid the verb is ', while fajar being a non-reflexive verb related to the hemming of a skirt.
The second-most spoken indigenous language of Cuba is Cuban Sign Language.
Haitian Creole dates back to the late 18th century, when people fled the Haitian Revolution to Cuba. However, speakers today are more recent immigrants and their children. Other languages spoken by immigrants in substantial numbers are Mandarin, Hindi, Levantine Arabic, Catalan and Russian; Yucatec and Galician were spoken in the 20th century.
Two folk-religious liturgical languages are Lucumi for SanterÃÂa and Habla Congo for the Palo religion.
At the time of the Spanish conquest, the main language was the Ciboney dialect of TaÃÂno. Classic TaÃÂno was spoken in the east, and the unattested Guanahatabey was spoken by hunter-gatherers in the far west. All are now extinct. A possible creole language that later developed among the African population, Bozal Spanish, is also extinct.
English is a mandatory subject in Cuban education, starting in primary school, and so is the second language of much of the population. A third language is encouraged.
Cuba has a multitude of faiths reflecting the island's diverse cultural elements. Catholicism, which was brought to the island by Spanish colonialists at the beginning of the 16th century, is the most prevalent professed faith. After the revolution, Cuba became an officially atheistic state and restricted religious practice. Since the Fourth Cuban Communist Party Congress in 1991, restrictions have been eased and, according to the National Catholic Observer, direct challenges by state institutions to the right to religion have all but disappeared, though the Church still faces restrictions of written and electronic communication, and can only accept donations from state-approved funding sources. The Roman Catholic Church is made up of the Cuban Catholic Bishops' Conference (COCC), led by Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino, Cardinal Archbishop of Havana. It has eleven dioceses, 56 orders of nuns and 24 orders of priests. In January 1998, Pope John Paul II paid a historic visit to the island, invited by the Cuban government and Catholic Church.
Afro-Cuban religions, a blend of native African religions and Roman Catholicism, are widely practiced in Cuba. This diversity derives from West and Central Africans who were transported to Cuba, and in effect reinvented their African religions. They did so by combining them with elements of the Catholic belief system, with a result very similar to Brazil. One of these Afro-Cuban religions is Santeria.
Protestantism, introduced from the United States in the 18th century, has seen a steady increase in popularity. 300,000 Cubans belong to the island's 54 Protestant denominations. Pentecostalism has grown rapidly in recent years, and the Assemblies of God alone claims a membership of over 167 000 people. The Episcopal Church of Cuba claims 10,000 adherents. Cuba has small communities of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and members of the BaháüàFaith.