What do you know about Ecuador?
Eager to find out more fun facts about Ecuador? keep reading!
Here’s a list of Ecuador-related things you did not know about.
The flowering plant, shaped human history for centuries, a compound extracted from this plant has saved millions of lives in human history.
The cinchona specie is used in the production of the anti-malaria medicine.
Population:16,905,000
Four percent of Ecuador’s population lives in the Amazon Basin
large concentrations along the western coastal strip.
Ethnic groups:Mestizo, Montubio, Amerindian, White, Afroecuadorian , Mulatto, Black.
Languages: Spanish (official),, other indigenous.
Religions: Roman Catholic, Evangelical 10, other 6.4% (includes Mormon, Jewish).
Life expectancy:male: 74.5 years
female: 80.6 years
The origin of the name of Ecuador is from Spanish colonists, from the word equator,
When the Spaniards colonized the land they called it "el ecuador" which translated means "the equator"which itself runs through the country only a few kilometers away from the capital city of Quito.
Ecuador is the only country in the world named after a geographical feature.
Location: Western South America, bordering the Pacific Ocean at the Equator, between Colombia and Peru.
Area:total: 283,561 sq km ( includes Galapagos Islands)
land: 276,841 sq km
water: 6,720 sq km
Land boundaries: total: 2,237 km
border countries: Colombia 708 km, Peru 1529 km
Coastline: 2,237 km
Elevation:
lowest point: Pacific Ocean 0 m
highest point: Chimborazo 6,267
Natural resources: petroleum
Ecuador is substantially dependent on its petroleum resources, accounted for about a third of the country's export earnings.
Land use:agricultural land: 30% (arable land: 5%)
Forest: 39% ( about 26 million hectares of forested land.)
The Ecuadorian Amazon contains only 2% of the entire Amazon basin, but this represents 80% of forested land in Ecuador.
A total of forest covers around 39% of the land area in Ecuador.
The Andes Mountains of Ecuador are home to 73 volcanoes in Ecuador is home to 48 volcanoes. In total (both active and extinct), with 15 in volcanoes Galapagos and 33 on the mainland.
The volcanoes of Ecuador belong to the Northern Volcanic Zone of the Andes.
Here are some of the most beautiful and popular volcanoes in Ecuador.
Chalupas
One of the world’s 7 megavolcanoes.
Elevation: 4,000 m.
Sangay (5,230 m), which erupted in 2010, is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world and one of Ecuador's most active ones.
With it's perfect steep cone shape and glacier-covered top, above the Amazonian rainforest.
Cotopaxi( 5911 m ) is one of South America's most active ones. It also ranks among the world's highest active volcanoes (26th highest).
Antisana Elevation: 5,753 m 4th Highest Volcano in Ecuador.
The closest point on Earth to the stars is Mt Chimborazo not Mt Everest.
The highest point on the planet farthest from its center is Mount Chimborazo not Mount Everest.
Because the earth is not a perfect sphere and has an equatorial bulge, the highest point on the planet farthest from its center is Mount Chimborazo not Mount Everest.
Earth is not a perfect sphere, is a bit thicker at the Equator due to the centrifugal force. Because of this, the highest point above Earth’s center is the peak of Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo.
The summit of Chimborazo is over 6,800 feet farther from the center of the Earth than Everest’s peak.
That makes Chimborazo the closest point on Earth to the stars.
The cacao tree, whose seeds are used to make chocolate and which was long thought to have originated in Mesoamerica, was first domesticated in the upper Amazon region of northwest South America - present-day Ecuador - about 3,300 B.C.
Ecuador is using the American Dollar as its national currency since 2000.
Ecuador has no other official currency, all prices are in US Dollars.
40% of adults in Ecuador don’t have bank account.approximately 60 percent of the population owned an Account at a bank or other financial institution.
Ecuador as the most biodiverse nation on earth, the country with the most plant and animal species per square kilometre anywhere on the planet.
Over 25,000 plant species are found in Ecuador (10% of all the plant species in the world).
In Ecuador around 5000 species of orchids.
Ecuador is home to an estimated 8% of amphibian species(492 species ), 5% of reptile species (414 species), 8% of mammal species (398 species), 16% of the world’s bird species(1632 species).
