Ecuador is a small country on the northwestern coast of South America, straddling the equator from which it takes its name. It is renowned for the Galápagos Islands, a volcanic archipelago in the Pacific that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. Ecuador is also home to a stretch of the Amazon rainforest and some of the highest volcanoes in the world.
- Capital
- Quito
- Continent
- Americas
- Region
- South America
- Area
- 276,841 km²
- Coordinates
- 2° S, 77.5° W
Country facts
- Ecuador was part of the Inca Empire before Spanish colonization in the 16th century.
- The country exports more bananas than almost any other nation on Earth.
- Ecuador has four distinct regions: the coast, the Andes highlands, the Amazon basin, and the Galápagos Islands.
- Spanish is the official language, but Kichwa is widely spoken among indigenous communities.
- Ecuador adopted the US dollar as its official currency in the year 2000.
Capital facts
- Quito sits at about 2,850 metres above sea level, making it one of the highest capital cities in the world.
- The city was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, among the first cities to receive that honour.
- Quito's historic centre is one of the largest and best-preserved colonial old towns in Latin America.
- The city lies just south of the equator in a narrow valley surrounded by volcanoes, including the active Pichincha.
- The Basílica del Voto Nacional in Quito is one of the largest neo-Gothic churches in the Americas.