El Salvador

Sharing borders with Guatemala and Honduras and the Pacific Ocean, El Salvador is the smallest country in Latin America. It is the most densely populated country on the mainland of the Americas with 6.5 million inhabitants. Almost 90% of the population is mestiza, resulting from the intermarriage of Spanish settlers with the original indigenous people.

The country was a Spanish colony from 1540 to 1821 and was part of the United Provinces of Central America, which also included Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, from 1823 to 1840. The country was the focus of international attention because of a civil war launched by the left-wing insurgency Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front against the U.S.-backed Salvadoran Armed Forces that lasted from 1980 to 1992. The assassination of ...