Islam in Cuba: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Cuba

The Republic of Cuba changed hands from Spain to the United States in 1898 and gained its independence from the latter in 1902. It has an area of 110,860 sq km and consists mostly of the island of Cuba, but also includes Isla de la Juventud (2,149 sq km), and over three thousands of much smaller islands surrounding the main island, almost all are uninhabited.

In 1907 there were 2,500 Muslims or 0.1% of the total population. They were mostly workers from India and China. Estimates for the Muslim population doubled to 5,000 or 0.1% in 1953 and then decreased due to the communist revolution to 1,000 or 0.01% in 1970, 1981 and 2002. It then increased to 3,000 or 0.03% in 2012 and 4,000 or 0.04% in 2021. The first mosque was opened in old Havana in 2015

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will increase by 0.01 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain less than 8,000 or 0.1% throughout of this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Cuba

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.