El Salvador 2019
Yearbook 2019
El Salvador. The February 3 presidential election was historically in many ways. Nayib Bukele of GANA (Grand Alliance for National Unity) won in the first round and not only became the first candidate to break the hegemony of ARENA (Republican National Alliance) and FMLN (Front Farabundo Martà for National Liberation) in El Salvador in 30 years, but also with his 37 years became the youngest head of state ever in the country’s history. The victory margin, 53%, was also exceptionally large; he got more votes than all rivals together. Bukele also won in all the provinces of the country, in eight of them with more than 50% of the vote, five of which were the country’s most populous. But it was due less to Bukele’s popularity than to disastrous results for the rival parties, especially the FMLN, which received fewer votes than ever.
A major reason for his victory was the electorate’s sympathies with Bukele’s attacks on the political establishment that ARENA and FMLN constituted and which have been the focus of corruption investigations in recent years. However, dissatisfaction with the established parties was also reflected in the low turnout – only 52%. Analysts felt that his policies were in line with the populism that swept across Latin America in recent years, and he himself had, among other things, a pronounced hostile attitude to established media. How he intends to manage the country’s large budget deficit was not mentioned during the election campaign. Foreign policy, he said, wants to approach the United States and distance himself from the region’s less democratic leaders.
- ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG: Click to see the meanings of 3-letter acronym and abbreviation of SLV in general and in geography as El Salvador in particular.
San Salvador – city of El Salvador
San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador; 567,700 residents (2011), 2.4 million in the metropolitan area. The city is at 682 m altitude, surrounded by volcanoes; the area is geologically active and the city has been repeatedly ravaged by earthquakes. It is now completely rebuilt as a modern metropolis and there are no remnants of Spanish colonial architecture. San Salvador has a dominant role as the country’s commercial, financial, political and industrial center and is also a traffic hub by rail to the port city of Acajutla on the Pacific.
The city has grown a lot since 1980; The civil war in El Salvador drove thousands of rural workers into refugee camps around the capital, and even though the camps have been closed down, many have become residents. The strong urban growth has, among other things, caused by a growing air pollution which is amplified by the location with frequent temperature inversions and thus stagnant air.
The city has several universities: the national (1841), a Jesuit (1965) as well as right-wing universities, created during the Civil War, when the conflict between the right and the left was strongest. Following the peace agreement in 1992, the city has seen a resurgence as a cultural center.
San Salvador was founded by the Spaniard Diego de Alvarado in 1525. It was only after the colonial period and the earliest independence period that the city from 1834 gained the status of capital. A series of earthquakes, 1854, 1873, 1917 and 1919, caused widespread devastation, and again in the 1980’s, an earthquake and civil war in the country caused great devastation and many died. The devastation of major earthquakes in 2001 was less than in the past, which is interpreted as a result of earthquake-proofed newly constructed properties since the 1980’s.
Population 2019
According to CountryAAH, the population of El Salvador in 2019 was 6,453,442, ranking number 111 in the world. The population growth rate was 0.510% yearly, and the population density was 311.4649 people per km2.
