White Cubans

White Cubans (Spanish: Cubanos blancos) are Cubans of wholly or predominantly European (predominantly Iberian) and West Asian ancestry, typically characterized by light or olive skin complexions, who self-identify as 'blanco' (White). At the institutional level, the Cuban National Office of Statistics and Information—the body responsible for compiling official demographic data—employs the designation "white" in its classifications. The 2012 Cuban census identified White Cubans as the largest demographic group in Cuba, comprising 64.12% of the total population. In Cuba, the term blanco (English "white") encompasses persons of broadly European ancestry, in practice predominantly those of Southern European descent, whose phenotypic characteristics, include light skin complexion. Most white Cubans descend predominantly from Spanish settlers and immigrants, principally from the regions of Andalusia, the Canary Islands, Asturias, Galicia, and Castile. Aside from those of Spanish descent, white Cuban ancestry also encompasses the descendants of immigrants from France, the United Kingdom (particularly England), Portugal, Italy, and other European nations. The Royal Decree of 21 October 1817 formally encouraged European settlement in Cuba during the island's administration as the Captaincy General, an administrative division of the Spanish Empire. Significant migratory flows from northern Spain, alongside immigrants from other parts of Europe, continued into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.