Millennial Ecuador: Critical Essays Cultural Transformations

Appendix: General Information on Ecuador

a p p e n d i x General Information on Ecuador michelle wibbelsman The Nation The Republic of Ecuador was one of three countries (with Colombia and Venezuela) to emerge from the collapse of Gran Colombia in 1830. Article 1 of the 1998 Ecuadorian constitution declares Ecuador a social, legal, sovereign, unitary, independent, democratic, pluricultural, and multiethnic state. Its government is republican, presidential, elective, representative , responsible, alternative, and participatory, and its administration is decentralized. Location Ecuador is located in northwestern South America, bordering the Pacific Ocean at the Equator, between Colombia and Peru. Longitude 77°30⬘ west and Latitude 3°28⬘ south. Area Ecuador’s total area including the Galápagos Islands and 6,720 square kilometers of territorial sea is 283,560 square kilometers. Mainland area is 256,370 square kilometers. Total semiprotected area is approximately 2,769,030 hectares (27,690 square kilometers) in nine national parks, seven ecological reserves, and two faunal production reserves. Geography Ecuador is divided into four environmentally distinct regions: Coast, Sierra, and Oriente (Amazonian region) on the mainland and the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean. These regions, in turn, are divided administratively into twenty-two provinces, which are subdivided into cantons composed of parishes. Quito is the national capital and Guayaquil is the nation’s largest city and principal commercial port. Elevations range from sea level at the Pacific Ocean to 6,267 meters (Chimborazo, Ecuador ’s highest peak). At 5,897 meters, snowcapped Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano in the world. Biodiversity Although Ecuador covers only 0.2 percent of the earth’s surface, it contains some of the greatest biological diversity in the world. Ecuador’s flora include twenty-five thousand plant species, most of them endogenous 375 to the region. Some areas feature the highest recorded concentration of plant diversity on Earth. Ecuador’s fauna include more than 4,000 vertebrate species, 1,550 bird species, 1,250 fish species, 375 amphibian species, and 350 reptile species. The bulk of animal life in the country’s unique and tremendously diverse environmental niches comprises insects and other arthropods. Current Environmental Issues Current issues include deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, water pollution, pollution from oil production wastes, toxic pesticides and herbicides , and mercury poisoning. Population Dynamics The population of Ecuador is 13,183,978 (July 2001 estimate). Population distribution is 65 percent urban (especially in Guayaquil, with approximately 3 million; Quito, with approximately 2 million; and Cuenca, with 272,708) and 35 percent rural. The annual population growth rate is estimated at 2.1 percent. According to CODENPE (Consejo de Desarrollo de las Nacionalidades y Pueblos del Ecuador), 30 percent to 40 percent of the population is indigenous, which means that one in every three Ecuadorians is indigenous. People often classed as mestizos comprise 55 percent of the population in this estimate; Afro-Ecuadorians 9 percent; and others, including blancos, 1 percent. These percentages range widely, however, with some estimates of the indigenous population as low as 10 percent, the Afro-Ecuadorian population at 5 percent, and the mestizo or blancomestizo population at 80 percent. Two recent phenomena raise important issues in assessing population size: mass emigration and increasing numbers of immigrant Colombians. More than half a million Ecuadorians have emigrated to other countries since 1998. When emigration is considered , New York City, not Cuenca, is the third-largest city of Ecuadorians. Since 1985, armed conflict in Colombia has displaced more than 2 million people, many of whom have crossed the border into Ecuador in search of safety. The northern Sierra province of Carchi is reported to have eleven thousand to thirteen thousand refugees and neighboring Imbabura to have 1,322. The NGOs monitoring the effects of Plan Colombia in Ecuador believe that the implementation of the plan will lead to the displacement of an additional fifteen thousand people, five thousand of whom are expected to seek refuge in Ecuador. Distinct People and Languages Spanish is the official language of Ecuador. In addition, multiple native languages are spoken among Ecuador’s thirteen indigenous nationalities and other ethnic groups distributed in 1,334 communities in the Andes, 62 on the Coast, and 548 in the Oriente. 376 : M. Wibbelsman Sierra Andean Quichua language: Quichua population: 3,000,000 Coast Awá language: Awapit population: in Ecuador 900–1000 Chachi language: Cha’palaa population: 4,000 Tsháchila language: Tsa’fiqui population: 2,000...