Baracoa is a municipality an city in Guantánamo Province in extreme eastern Cuba. It was founded by the first governor of Cuba, the Spanish conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar in 1511, which makes it not only the oldest Spanish settlement in Cuba but also its first capital (and gives it the nickname Ciudad Primada, "First City"). It is located on the spot where Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba on his first voyage. It is thought that the name stems from the indigenous Arauaca language word meaning "the presence of the sea."