Criollo means “native” or “creole” in Spanish. In tobacco, it is an older Cuban-seed variety that was grown for generations in Cuba and later in other countries. Some farms use criollo as filler, some as binder, and some as a rough-textured wrapper. The name alone does not tell you which.
It belongs to the same group as corojo and habano: tobacco of Cuban ancestry grown in other countries. Seed catalogs also list crossbred versions, such as criollo ’98. This encyclopedia does not treat those catalog names as information about flavor.
When a page needs to say where the tobacco was grown, it names the country, such as Nicaragua, Honduras, or Cuba. Criollo names the plant variety, not where it was grown.