Cuba & Puerto Rico Map 1898 Regional Print - Havana, Santiago de Cuba, San Juan

This map of Cuba was published in 1898 by Colton, Ohman & Co., the New York firm that the venerable G.W. & C.B. Colton mapmaking house had become that same year, distributed as a free supplement to the Utica Daily Press to help its readers follow the Spanish-American War then unfolding across the island. Newspaper map supplements like this one were a common wartime promotional tool, printed cheaply and quickly to satisfy public demand for geography readers could not otherwise easily find, and this sheet is explicitly labeled with the paper's own subscription pitch alongside its geographic content. Three untitled insets accompany the main map, covering the wider West Indies, Puerto Rico, and the city and harbor of Havana, giving readers a fuller regional picture of the conflict zone in a single, affordable sheet.

Cuba's provincial divisions are clearly labeled across the map, including Pinar del Rio in the west, Matanzas near Havana, and Santiago de Cuba at the island's eastern end, each marked to help readers follow news reports naming specific theaters of the fighting. Relief is shown through isolines and hachures rather than color tinting, a more technical cartographic approach suited to a map meant for careful reading rather than decorative display. The Havana inset is drawn in particular detail, reflecting the city's central role as both Cuba's capital and the focal point of American naval and press attention throughout the war. Published at the height of a conflict that would end Spanish colonial rule in Cuba entirely, the map captures the island at the exact moment its political future was being decided.

This map is a strong pick for a collector of Spanish-American War material or for anyone with Cuban family history reaching back to the island's final years under Spanish rule. It offers a very different character from the pictorial 1941 Cuba map found elsewhere in this collection, a working wartime news map rather than a later tourist-oriented illustration, and the pairing of the two makes for a striking contrast in how Cuba was mapped for American audiences across four decades. It is offered unframed in a full range of sizes to suit any wall.