Carnaval de Matanzas

Matanzas's carnival descends from religious spring festivities that included dances by enslaved people during the colonial era, continuing through republican-era merchant and bourgeois influence to a particularly celebrated 1959 revolutionary edition, with parades traditionally along Calzada de Tirry featuring giant munecones puppets, floats representing the city's industries, and revived historic comparsas Las Imalianas and Los Guajiros Elegantes, alongside a separate July 26 aquatic carnival on the Rio San Juan.

Matanzas's carnival traces its earliest roots to spring festivities tied to religious celebration, a period that historically included dances performed by enslaved people during the colonial era, before the tradition continued through the neo-colonial republic under growing influence from merchants and the city's bourgeoisie, who shaped the carnival's civic character in the decades before 1959.