A cigar is a tightly rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco, one end of which is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the smoker's mouth or lungs.


The word cigar is from the Spanish word cigarro, which the Oxford English Dictionary suggests is a variation on cigarra, Spanish for "cicada," due to its shape, especially that of what is now called the perfecto. Other sources have indicated that it may be derived from the Mayan word sikar, "tobacco."


Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in such nations as Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua and the United States of America. Cigars manufactured in Cuba are widely considered to be without peer, thanks both to the unique characteristics of the Vuelta Abajo region in the Pinar del Río Province at the west of the island, where a microclimate allows for unequalled tobacco to be grown, and to the skill of the nation's cigar-makers.