Varaderois aresort townin the province ofMatanzas,Cuba, and one of the largest resort areas in theCaribbean.The place was first used as a dry dockand the salt mines of the peninsula (closed in 1961) supplied most of the Spanish Latin America Fleet since 1587. However, the foundation date of Varadero as city was only on December 5, 1887, when ten families from the city ofCárdenasobtained a permission to build their vacation homes between today's 42nd and 48th Street.
Varadero is foremost a tourist resort town, boasting more than 20km of white sandy beaches. The first tourists visited Varadero as early as the 1870s, and for years it was considered an elite resort. In 1910 the annual rowing regatta was started; five years later the first hotel, named Varadero and later Club Nautico, was built. Tourism grew in the early 1930s asIrénée du Pont, an American millionaire, built his estate on the peninsula. Many famous and infamous people stayed in Varadero, for exampleAl Capone.