Danzón is the official musical genre and dance of Cuba. It is also an active musical form in Mexico and Puerto Rico. Written in 24 time, the danzón is a slow, formal partner dance, requiring set footwork around syncopated beats, and incorporating elegant pauses while the couples stand listening to virtuoso instrumental passages, as characteristically played by a charanga or típica ensemble.

The danzón evolved from the Cuban contradanza, or habanera (lit. 'Havana-dance'). The contradanza, which had English and French roots in the country dance and contredanse, was probably introduced to Cuba by the Spanish, who ruled the island for almost four centuries (1511–1898), contributing many thousands of immigrants. It may also have been partially seeded during the short-lived British occupation of Havana in 1762. Haitian refugees fleeing the island's revolution of 1791–1804 brought the French-Haitian kontradans, contributing their own Creole syncopation. In Cuba, the dances of European origin acquired new stylistic features derived from African rhythm and dance to produce a genuine fusion of European and African influences. African musical traits in the danzón include complex instrumental cross-rhythms, expressed in staggered cinquillo and tresillo patterns.

By 1879, the year Miguel Failde's Las alturas de Simpson was first performed (in Matanzas), danzón had emerged as a distinct genre. Danzón went on to interact with 20th century Cuban genres such as son, and through the danzón-mambo it was instrumental in the development of mambo and cha-cha-chá.