Port of Mariel & ZED Mariel

History

1. 1768

   The municipality of Mariel is established by royal decree on a natural deepwater bay ~45 km west of Havana; the first sugar mills follow by ~1770.

2. 1805

   The town center is founded (June 13). A customs house, lighthouse and watchtower build out a 19th-century sugar-export port.

3. Apr 1980

   Fidel Castro opens the port to departures — the Mariel boatlift. About 1,700 boats carry ~125,000 Cubans (“Marielitos”) to Florida by October.

4. 2011

   Singapore's PSA International signs to operate a new container terminal — TC Mariel.

5. Sep 2013

   Decree-Law 313 creates the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZED Mariel) — 465.4 km², wholly-foreign ownership allowed.

6. Jan 2014

   TC Mariel begins operations — often called the biggest investment of the Cuban Revolution.

7. 2025–26

   Under tightened US sanctions on the GAESA conglomerate, PSA quietly winds down after ~15 years.

Named after

The port takes its name from the Bahía de Mariel it sits on. A popular claim ties “Mariel” to an old word for the myrrh tree, but no primary source confirms it — so the origin is best treated as unsettled.

Where it stands

Cuba's principal container port: an ~18 m design-depth channel, a 700 m quay for two large ships at once, and four super-post-Panamax gantry cranes — engineered for ~850,000–1,000,000 TEU a year, roughly triple Havana's. Yet it runs far below capacity: the US embargo's 180-day rule deters transshipment lines, and the zone's land and labor rules sit under the military-linked GAESA.