Viñales (Pinar del Río)
( Viñales )Viñales is a town and municipality in the north-central Pinar del Río Province of Cuba. The town consists mostly of one-story wooden houses with porches. The municipality is dominated by low mountain ranges of the Cordillera de Guaniguanico such as Sierra de los Órganos. Typical outcrops known as mogotes complete the karstic character of the landscape.
The town and the Viñales Valley immediately to the north were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in November 1999 for the karst landscape and traditional agriculture as well as vernacular architecture, crafts and music.
Before European settlement, the area was the home of a remnant Taíno population swelled with runaway slaves.[1] The area was colonised at the beginning of the 1800s by tobacco growers from the Canary Islands, who settled in the Vuelta Abajo region. The first colonial settlement in Viñales is documented in 1871, in the form of a ranch belonging to Andrés Hernández Ramos. The town was established in 1878 as a typical community, with church, school, hospital and recreation park.[2]
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