The Chinese word **哈瓦那 (Hāwǎnà)** is a phonetically formed transcription, specifically a direct phonetic borrowing from the English name "Havana," the capital of Cuba. It is constructed by selecting Chinese characters whose modern pronunciations closely approximate the sounds of the foreign name's syllables—"Ha" (哈), "wa" (瓦), and "na" (那)—with no semantic connection to the original meaning. This method of creating words, known as transcription or phonetic translation, is standard in Chinese for adapting foreign proper nouns, especially place names, into the writing system.