Ecuador

Full name of country: Republic of Ecuador

Region: South America

Official language: Spanish (Castilian), Quechua and Shuar (official languages of intercultural relations)

Population: 18,309,984 (2024 est.)

Nationality: Ecuadorian(s) (noun), Ecuadorian (adjective)

Land area: 276,841 sq km

Water area: 6,720 sq km

Capital: Quito

National anthem: "Salve, Oh Patria!" (We Salute You Our Homeland), by Juan Léon Mera/Antonio Neumane

National holiday: Independence Day (independence of Quito), August 10 (1809)

Population growth: 0.94% (2024 est.)

Time zone: UTC –5

Flag: The flag of Ecuador, known as “La Tricolor,” has three horizontal bands of color: one gold, one blue, and one red. In the center of the flag, the coat of arms of Ecuador is featured. The coat of arms depicts a condor with outstretched wings.

Motto: “Dios, Patria y Libertad” (God, Homeland and Liberty)

Independence: May 24, 1822 (from Spain)

Government type: presidential republic

Suffrage: 18–65 years of age, universal and compulsory; 16–18, over 65, and other eligible voters, voluntary

Legal system: civil law based on the Chilean civil code with modifications; traditional law in indigenous communities

Ecuador, which in Spanish means "equator," is so named because the equator passes through the country. Once a Spanish colony, Ecuador struggled toward democracy for more than a century. Although the country has had more than fifteen constitutions and has been governed by numerous presidents, dictators, and juntas, its government has been relatively stable since the mid-to-late twentieth century.

One of the smallest countries in South America, Ecuador boasts more biodiversity than most countries in the world. Within its small territory, Ecuador has islands, rainforests, deserts, snow-capped mountains, and valleys. The country's territory includes the Galápagos Islands, located several hundred miles off its coast. Ecuador is also home to several protected environmental areas.

Note: unless otherwise indicated, statistical data in this article is sourced from the CIA World Factbook, as cited in the bibliography

People and Culture

Population: Approximately 64.8 percent of the population of Ecuador lives in urban areas (2023 estimate). At the 2010 nationwide census, nearly half of the people lived on the coastal plains, and almost as many lived on the plateaus and in the valleys of the Andes. Only about 600,000 people lived in the tropical rainforest to the east of the mountains. At the time of the 2015 Galápagos provincial census, 25,244 Ecuadorians lived on the islands.

Gauyaquil is the largest city, with a population of 3.142 million, while Quito, the capital, has a population of approximately 1.957 million (2023 estimates). 25.2 percent of the population lives below the poverty line (2022 estimate).

Ecuador is home to more than fourteen Indigenous groups, which maintain their own customs and language. At the 2022 census, about 77.5 percent of the population self-identified as Mestizo (a mixture of Indigenous and Spanish descent). Another 7 percent was Amerindian, 2.2 percent was White, 2 percent was Afroecuadorian, and 1.3 percent of the population was Black. Although Spanish is the official language, Quechua is commonly spoken, along with other Indigenous languages.

Ecuador has no state religion. According to a 2023 estimate, 68.2 percent of Ecuadorian adults were Roman Catholic and 18.3 percent were Evangelical Protestants. Indigenous groups often mix Christian beliefs with traditional beliefs.

Indigenous People: Pre-Columbian Ecuador was home to many tribes and cultures, including the Valdivia, Machalilla, Chorerra, Narrio, Tiaone, Jama-Coaque, La Tolita, Bahia, and Guangala. Many types of objects made by these peoples, including female figurines and ceramics, tools of stone and quartz, and obsidian spears, survive today.

In the late fifteenth century, the Inca from Peru conquered much of what is now Ecuador. The Inca united many of the tribes and taught them Quechua, the Incan language.

The Spanish conquered the territory in 1534, and Indigenous people were forced into slave labor on the large haciendas (plantations). Spaniards who settled in the coastal lowlands imported enslaved Africans. Relations between Spanish men and Amerindian women produced a large population of Mestizos.

Ecuadorians of European descent are among the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country. Many are absentee landowners of large haciendas. Others are engaged in business or trading. Ecuador's Amerindians have very little power or money. They maintain their traditional languages, clothes and customs. Many work unpaid on haciendas for the privilege of using small plots of land for themselves. Some Amerindian women earn money by weaving or pottery-making.

Mestizos often work as day laborers, harvesting bananas or cacao (cacao seeds are used to make chocolate and cocoa). Some plains Mestizos clear small plots of land in the forest to feed their families. As the soil wears out, they migrate. Mestizos in the Andes often own their land. Others work for hire as laborers, servants, and shopkeepers.

The Black population lives mostly on the northern coastal plain, fishing for a livelihood.

Education: School attendance is compulsory for children ages five to fourteen, but the preschool year is optional. Primary education officially begins at age six and lasts for six years. Secondary education is provided in two three-year cycles.

All government-run schools in Ecuador are free. Indigenous languages are used for instruction in some rural schools. The literacy rate is 93.9 percent overall (94.9 percent among men and 93.1 percent among women, according to 2022 estimates).

In the 2010s a national exam was instituted to assess students and determine university admittance. University education lasts up to six years. The nation's oldest, Universidad Central del Ecuador in Quito, was founded in 1651. Other prominent universities include the Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Universidad de Cuenca, and Universidad de Las Américas Ecuador.

Health Care: Overall life expectancy for Ecuadorians is 74.9 years—69.7 years for men and 80.4 years for women (2024 estimates). The infant mortality rate is 11.2 deaths per 1,000 live births. Common diseases there include bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid fever, dengue fever, and malaria.

Auxiliary health-care personnel staff rural posts in small communities. Medium-sized communities are served by health professionals in small health centers. Urban health centers serve the residents of the larger provincial capitals. Only the largest cities have hospitals.

Ecuador's HDI value for 2022 is 0.765— which put the country in the High human development category—positioning it at 83 out of 193 countries and territories.

Food: Some common Ecuadorian dishes are seco de pollo (stewed chicken with rice and avocado), seco de chivo (goat stew served with rice), and lomo saltado (beef with onions and tomatoes). Typical of many South American countries, empanadas are pastries filled with meat or cheese.

Potatoes appear in many Ecuadorian recipes; in the Andes they are often accompanied by menestra (beans or lentils) or yucca. Llapingachos are pancakes made with potatoes and cheese. Plantains and bananas also come in many varieties. Patacones, or mashed, fried green bananas, are a popular traditional food.

Soup is served at all meals. One popular variety is caldo de gallina, made with chicken. Chupe de pescado, a fish-and-vegetable soup, is also common.

Corvine (white sea bass) and trucha (trout) are common seafood dishes. Ceviche is a dish of raw fish, shrimp, shellfish, or squid usually marinated in lime juice; in Ecuador, ceviche is sometimes made using orange juice instead. Enocados, seafood cooked in coconut milk, is another popular seafood preparation. Roasted corn is a common snack throughout Ecuador.

Chicha is the traditional Andean drink. Mildly alcoholic, chicha is made from fermented corn. Another common drink in the Andes is canelazo, made of boiled water, sugar cane alcohol, lemon, sugar and cinnamon. It is usually drunk at fiestas, or celebrations.

Arts & Entertainment: Ecuadorian art dates back to pre-Columbian times. For example, the Chorerra culture is noted primarily for its pottery, but also for its lifelike sculptures and whistling jars. The Machalilla culture produced long, thin, spouted jars, high-necked jars, and earthenware bowls.

Most artistic works of the colonial period were religious. One example is the Cathedral of Quito, with its fan-shaped stairway and small dome, built between 1562 and 1567. Sculpture during this period primarily consisted of altars, icons and statues. Prominent colonial artists included Bernardao de Legarda, Pedro Bedon, Miguel de Santiago and his daughter, and Nicolas de Goribar.

Modern Ecuadorian artists include Luis Milinari, Jorge Chalco, Nelson Roman, Miguel Varea, Luigi Stornaiolo, Jose Carreno, Antonio Paredes and Anibal Villacis.

Juan Leon Mera's Cumanda (1879) was the first major Ecuadorian novel. Other well-known Ecuadorian writers include Luis A. Martinez, Demetrio Aguilera Malta, Jose de la Cuadra, Joaquin Gallegos Lara, and Fernando Chavez. Contemporary authors of note include Raul Perez Torres, Nelson Miguel Donoso Pareja, Abdon Ubidia, and Adalberto Ortiz.

The most popular form of Ecuadorian music is the pasillo, derived from the Viennese waltz. Other popular music styles are the albazo, tonada, varavie, pascalle, and danzante. Bomba is a type of music named for the drum which provides the rhythm for music and dance. Bomba was created by the mixture of African, Andean, and European cultures in Ecuador. The marimba was imported directly from Africa.

Football (soccer) is Ecuador's favorite sport. Volleyball, which is played with a heavier ball than in the United States, and with three people on each team, is another popular sport.

Pelota nacional is a traditional game in which two teams hit a small ball back and forth while a third team tries to intercept it. This game is generally played by older Ecuadorians.

Holidays: Official holidays observed in Ecuador include New Year's Day (January 1), Carnival (February), Good Friday (March or April), Labor Day (May 1), Quito's Independence Day (August 10), Guayaquil's Independence Day (October 9), the Day of the Dead (November 2), and Cuenca's Independence Day (November 3).

Ecuador celebrates its history with the observance of the Battle of Pichincha around May 24, the founding of Guayaquil on July 24 (locally only), and the founding of Quito on December 6.

Environment and Geography

Topography: Ecuador, about the size of Colorado, is bounded on the north by Colombia, on the east and south by Peru, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. The Galápagos Islands, 960 kilometers (600 miles) offshore, are also part of Ecuador.

Ecuador has four topographical regions: the coastal lowland, the Andes highland (or Sierra), the eastern lowland (or Oriente) and the Galápagos.

The coastal lowland is a flat plain of mud and sand washed down from the mountains. The northern part is wet and swampy, while the southern part is desert. Between these two zones grow tropical rainforests. Much of the forested area has been cleared for crops.

The Andes highland consists of two parallel ridges of mountains traversing the country from north to south. High plateaus lie between the ridges, and some of the peaks are volcanic. The eastern lowland is an undeveloped area of thick tropical rainforest. Travel is mostly by boat on the region's many rivers.

The Galápagos Islands, the inspiration for Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, are mostly volcanic peaks, rising as high as 12,500 meters (5,000 feet). The islands comprise an area of 7,800 square kilometers (3,000 square miles). They are known for their strange animals and plants.

Ecuador's highest point is Mount Chimborazo, a volcano in the Andes, rising 6,267 meters (20,561 feet) above sea level.

The rivers of Ecuador are short but navigable. The Rio Esmeraldas flows through the northern coastal lowland for 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the Pacific. The Rio Guayas, formed of tributaries from the Andes, flows for 156 kilometers (100 miles) through the southern part of the coastal lowlands into the Pacific. The Guayas is part of one of the largest rivers systems on the west coast of South America.

The Rio Pastazas, 644 kilometers (400 miles) long, rises in the Andes and flows south and east through the eastern lowland to the Rio Maranon in Peru, one of the headwaters of the Amazon. The Rio Napo, 885 kilometers (550 miles) long, flows through northeast Ecuador to northeast Peru.

Natural Resources: Petroleum is Ecuador's main natural resource. Substantial oil deposits were discovered in the northeastern part of the country in the 1960s, and Ecuador was a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) before leaving the organization in 2020. The country's other resources include fish, hydropower, and timber.

Environmental concerns include water pollution, desertification, deforestation, and soil erosion. Perhaps worst of all, wastes from oil production have polluted fragile ecological areas in the Amazon Basin and in the Galápagos Islands.

Plants & Animals: Ecuador is home to 9 percent of the world's animal species and 18 percent of its birds. Among Ecuador's birds, the most famous is the rare king vulture. Others include the harpy eagle, which is known to snatch monkeys out of treetops; the hoatzin, the only species in its family; and numerous varieties of macaws and toucans.

Common animals include two species of tapir (the largest native mammal), jaguars, ocelots, monkeys (including woolly, spider and squirrel monkeys), armadillos, sloths, anteaters, and rodents (including the capybara, the world's largest rodent).

The rainforests host many varieties of tree frogs, including the poison-arrow frog. Anacondas, the heaviest snakes in the world (weighing up to 440 pounds), and caimans, a kind of crocodile, also inhabit the rivers, as do river dolphins and manatees. Fish typically found in Ecuador's waters include piranhas, stingrays and electric eels. Humpback whales and tropical fish are found in the waters off the coast.

The Galápagos Islands are home to giant tortoises, penguins, sea lions, iguanas, yellow and black marine turtles, frigate birds, blue-footed boobies, albatross, white-tipped sharks, sperm whales, bottlenose dolphins and whale sharks. Many animals and plants of the Galápagos are found nowhere else in the world.

Ecuador also has 10 percent of the plant species in the world. The rainforests are home to 10,000 plant species, including 25,000 species of trees and 2,725 species of orchids. Grasses and frailejones (a kind of short tree) are found at high elevations of the Andes. The Galápagos Islands also host 600 native plant species and 250 introduced species.

Climate: The climate of Ecuador depends largely on elevation. The lowlands are hot and humid, with average temperatures of 23 to 26 degrees Celsius (73 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit). The Andes are cool, with temperatures ranging between 13 and 18 degrees Celsius (55 and 64 degrees Fahrenheit). The higher elevations are colder and snowcapped. The Galápagos Islands experience the greatest climatic variation, with temperatures ranging from 22 to 32 degrees Celsius (72 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit).

Ecuador receives 140 centimeters (55 inches) of rain annually, mostly in the lowland areas. The southern coast and the Galápagos receive only light rain.

Economy

Oil accounted for about one-third of Ecuador's export income in 2018. However, this dependence on one resource makes the economy vulnerable to fluctuations in the world market.

In 2001, Ecuador adopted the US dollar as its official currency, in an effort to stabilize its economy and lower its foreign debt. Since that time, inflation has decreased, and the economy's rate of growth has increased. However, Ecuador's use of US currency has made the country a haven for money laundering by drug cartels.

The unemployment rate in Ecuador is 3.37 percent (2023 estimate). In 2023, the gross domestic product (GDP) was estimated at $118.845 billion while the per-capita (GDP) was estimated at US$14,300.

Industry: In addition to the production of fuel oil, gasoline, and other petroleum products, important industries in Ecuador include textiles, processed foods, wood products, and chemicals.

Ecuador’s total exports in 2023 amounted to US$34.64 billion. Major exports include petroleum, bananas, seafood, cut flowers, and cacao. China and the United States are Ecuador's largest trading partners.

Agriculture: Ecuador's main crops are bananas, coffee, cocoa, rice, potatoes, cassava, plantains, and sugarcane. Cut flowers are a significant export crop. Balsa wood, mahogany, and other tropical woods are also important.

Herring and mackerel are caught in coastal waters, and shrimp are farmed in ponds. Livestock products include beef, dairy, pork, and lamb.

Tourism: Tourism, particularly ecotourism, is growing in importance in Ecuador. More than 2.1 million international tourists visited the country in 2019. In 2022, tourism contributed to 4.2 percent of the country's GDP.

Popular activities for tourists include mountain climbing (including volcanoes), mountain biking, bungee jumping, hiking, rafting, kayaking, diving, snorkeling, surfing, windsurfing, jet skiing, paragliding, fishing, and horseback riding. Indigenous markets in villages and international car races around Lake Yaguarcocha are also of interest. Other tourist sites include the colonial cities of Quito and Guayaquil.

Tourists like to stand in the northern and southern hemispheres at once at Mitad del Mundo ("Middle of the Earth"), a popular tourist site in the Andes. Ecotours take visitors to the tropical rainforests, the Galápagos Islands and the Andes Mountains.

Government

Ecuador is a republic with universal suffrage at age sixteen. Voting is compulsory for literate citizens between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five. For others, voting is optional.

The president is chief of state and head of government and is directly elected by popular vote along with the vice president. The president appoints the members of the cabinet. The presidency has a two-term limit. A 2015 constitutional amendment that took effect in 2017 removed that term limit, thus potentially allowing for a future president to hold office indefinitely; however, the amendment was reversed in 2018 by popular vote. In 2019, the government was forced to temporarily relocate from Quito to Guayaquil following protests over a proposed end to fuel subsidies and the enaction of unpopular austerity measures to reduce the national debt. The government reinstated the fuel subsidies and abandoned the proposed austerity measures after two weeks of protest.

The unicameral Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly) has 137 members, 116 of whom are elected by popular vote in each province. Another fifteen are elected proportionally, and six others are elected by expatriate Ecuadorians. Assemby members serve four-year terms.

In 2024, President Noboa declares a temporary state of emergency to allow soldiers to be deployed to prisons to restore order, and to be posted across the country to help police combat the growing levels of gang violence.

Interesting Facts

• Many Ecuadorians enjoy fishing for large catfish called "bagre," found at the bottom of rivers. These fish can weigh up to 100 kilograms (221 pounds). They are caught using rope and a hook big enough to catch a shark.
• Race walker Jefferson Perez won Ecuador's first Olympic gold medal at the Atlanta Games in 1996.
• In 2015, Vanessa Arauz, head of the Ecuadorian team, became the youngest coach ever to participate in a Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup tournament.
• After a 2015 eruption, the Ecuadorian volcano Cotopaxi made breathing-like sounds for nearly a year; researchers named these sounds tornillos, meaning "screws," after the shape of their waves on a graph.
• In 2020 the Guiness Book of World Records certified two Ecuadorian spouses as the oldest married couple, with a combined age of 215. Julio Mora was then 110 years old, while his wife, Waldramina Quinteros, was 104.

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