Quito, Ecuador

Quito is the capital of Ecuador and that nation’s political and administrative center and a repository of a rich artistic and architectural heritage. The distinctive aesthetic of many of Quito’s religious and public buildings—characterized by vibrant colors, ornate designs, and the lavish use of gold and other precious substances—reflects the capital’s history of conquests by the Incan and Spanish empires. The blending of European colonial culture and indigenous influences gave rise to a unique Quiteño style and turned Quito into one of the most significant centers of religiously themed art in the Americas. Quito’s carefully restored heritage remains a magnet for tourists and scholars interested in the intersection of Old and New World cultures.

Landscape

Quito is located 25 kilometers (15 miles) south of the equator, on the slopes of the Guagua Pichincha, an active volcano in the Andes of northern Ecuador. The long, narrow river valley in which Quito lies is not only dotted with volcanoes, but is also prone to earthquakes. A powerful earthquake struck the capital in 1797 and killed 40,000 people.

Quito covers a ribbon of land approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) in length and only 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) wide. For administrative purposes, the city consists of nineteen electoral parishes arrayed into three main sections. The central district encompasses Quito’s historic core, which dates to the Spanish colonial era.

Most of the capital’s industry is concentrated to the south of the center. To the north lies the modern segment of Quito, which is dominated by the city’s business and financial infrastructure, as well as its most exclusive hotels, shops, and residential neighborhoods.

Although the city sits in a river basin, it nonetheless ranks as one of the world’s highest-altitude capitals, with an elevation of about 2,800 meters (9,200 feet) above sea level. Quito thus features a relatively cool climate, despite its proximity to the equator. Typical daytime temperatures hover around 26 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit) and fall at night to around 7 degrees Celsius (55 degrees Fahrenheit). The capital’s dry season lasts from June through September; the rainy season lasts from October until May.

People

With an estimated 1.957 million inhabitants as of 2023, Quito is Ecuador’s second most populous city (the first being Guayaquil). The capital’s population reflects the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Ecuador, a nation in which a third of the people are indigenous, and a dozen distinct groups speak eighteen different languages and dialects.

The majority of Quito’s residents are mestizo, or people of mixed indigenous and European ethnicity. The capital is also home to some people of African ancestry (the descendants of enslaved people brought to Ecuador), as well as sizeable communities of expatriates from countries such as China, Italy, Germany, Columbia, Chile, and Lebanon. Many of the area’s indigenous people, who are of Inca extraction and tend to refer to themselves as Runa (the People), live in several districts north of Quito as well as in the city itself.

The native language of the Runa is Quechua, a language that traces ancient roots to the Inca Empire, but many Runa also speak Spanish, Ecuador’s official language. In addition to Spanish, many Quito residents speak English, especially in tourist and business settings.

The majority of Quito’s inhabitants are Roman Catholic. However, there has been an upsurge of converts to various evangelical Protestant denominations in the early twenty-first century, particularly among the city’s poorest residents. Quito also features a sizeable Mormon presence and a small Jewish community.

Economy

Quito is one of Ecuador’s major hubs for industrial production. The capital’s manufacturing sector turns out pharmaceuticals, textiles, and leather goods, as well as gold, silver, and wooden decorative objects and handicrafts.

Ecuador’s national government, which has its seat in Quito, is one of the capital’s largest employers. The banking and financial industries, which are also concentrated in the capital, also provide numerous jobs. The fastest-growing component of Quito’s economy is the services sector.

The growth in the services sector has been fueled by Quito’s well-developed tourist industry. The Old City’s museums and churches draw many of the half million or so annual visitors to Ecuador to the capital.

Not all residents of Quito have enjoyed the benefits of the capital’s growing economy, however. Economic and living conditions in Quito Sur, or South Quito, are typical of those found in the developing world. Potable water, sanitation, and electricity are unavailable to nearly half of the people living in this segment of the capital.

City officials have attempted to address this severe poverty through the creation of an urban agriculture program. Worked primarily by rural migrants to the capital, nearly 500 gardens exist in Quito. These urban vegetable patches help feed the families who tend them, and also provide a source of revenue for people with little or no formal education or job training.

Landmarks

Quito’s carefully restored historic center is home to numerous richly decorated churches, plazas, museums, and Spanish colonial-style buildings characterized by red-tile rooftops, balconies, and central courtyards. The wealth of European architecture and indigenous artistic influences has led some to dub Quito the “Florence of the Americas.”

Of the forty or so churches and chapels scattered throughout Quito’s Old Town, the Metropolitan Cathedral, consecrated in 1572, is one of the most celebrated. Other key churches include the San Francisco church, Quito’s largest and oldest church; the Compañía de Jesús church, spectacularly covered by its Jesuit builders in gold leaf; and San Blas, an unassuming sixteenth-century church founded as a place of Catholic worship and burial exclusively for indigenous people.

Quito is home to many acclaimed museums, including those of the Central Bank and Casa di Cultura complex. These house extensive collections of pre-colonial pottery, sculpture, and golden Inca treasures, as well as exhibits devoted to Ecuadoran history and colonial, republican, and contemporary art. They also feature collections of musical instruments, art, and clothing from indigenous cultures.

Other notable museums include the Convent Museum of San Francisco, which showcases religious sculpture, paintings, textiles and furniture dating from the sixteenth century, and the Guayasamín Museum, devoted to the works of Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919–99), an internationally acclaimed painter and sculptor of indigenous descent.

Additional Quito landmarks of note are the Palacio de Gobierno, which serves as Ecuador’s presidential residence, and the city’s parks. The vast Metropolitan Park is the largest city park in all of South America. La Carolina Park features the Quito Botanical Gardens, while La Alameda Park contains one of South America’s oldest astronomical observatories.

Many of Quito’s landmarks are visible from the city’s aerial tramway, which rises to a height of more than 4,100 meters (13,400 feet). The Telefrigo, as the tram is called, has transported riders from the city center to a hill on the Pichincha volcano’s eastern side since 2005.

History

Quito was founded by Spanish conquistadors on a site previously occupied by pre-Incan and Incan cities. When the Incas, who had ruled Quito since conquering it in 1492, realized that the city’s capture by the Spanish was inevitable, they burned their own city to the ground. In 1534, the Spanish officially refounded Quito, and incorporated remnants of Inca stonework that had survived the fire into the Cathedral of San Francisco.

In 1541, Quito was formally proclaimed a city and in 1563 it became the seat of a royal administrative district of the Spanish crown. Under three centuries of Spanish colonial rule, many of the city’s most beautiful structures were built with the slave labor of indigenous people.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Quito-born residents of the city were beginning to resist Spanish control. In 1810, an ill-fated attempt by the residents of Quito to declare independence from Spain was quashed when Spanish soldiers killed the rebel leaders and many of their followers. In 1822, however, Quito finally secured its independence.

In 1978, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conferred World Heritage Site status on Quito, making it, together with Krakow, Poland, one of the first two such sites so designated.

On April 16, 2019, more than 20,000 Ecuadorians marched in Quito to protest against President Lenín Moreno’s of political repression and privatization. In particular, the demonstrators condemned the president’s failure to continue his predecessor Rafael Correa’s reconstruction program for areas devastated by a coastal earthquake that struck Ecuador on April 16, 2016. Correa’s former vice president, Jorge Glas, managed the reconstruction program but became a political prisoner under Moreno’s regime. Glas and Correa were later convicted of corruption. In 2023, a presidential candidate whose campaign denounced corruption in government was assassinated in Quito at a campaign event. Authorities suspected the killing was related to gang violence in the country.

Bibliography

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de la Torre, Carlos, and Steve Striffler, eds. The Ecuador Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham: Duke UP, 2008. Print.

“Ecuador.” The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 22 Feb. 2024, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/ecuador/. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024.

Hurtado, Osvaldo, and Barbara Sipe. Portrait of a Nation: Culture and Progress in Ecuador. Lanham: Madison, 2010. Print.

Lane, Kris E. Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2002. Print.

Lauderbaugh, George. The History of Ecuador. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2012. Print.

Solano, Gonzalo, and Regina Garcia Cano. "Ecuador Declares State of Emergency Following Assassination of Presidential Candidate Promoting Anti-Corruption." PBS Newshour, 10 Aug. 2023, www.pbs.org/newshour/world/ecuador-declares-state-of-emergency-following-assassination-of-presidential-candidate-promoting-anti-corruption. Accessed 26 Feb. 2024.