Ecuador

Various peoples had settled in the area of future Ecuador before the arrival of the Incas. The archeological evidence suggests that the Paleo-Indians' first dispersal into the Americas occurred near the end of the last glacial period, around 16,500–13,000 years ago. The first people who reached Ecuador may have journeyed by land from North and Central America or by boat down the Pacific Ocean coastline.

Even though their languages were unrelated, these groups developed similar groups of cultures, each based in different environments. The people of the coast combined agriculture with fishing, hunting, and gathering; the people of the highland Andes developed a sedentary agricultural way of life; and peoples of the Amazon basin relied on hunting and gathering; in some cases, this is combined with agriculture and arboriculture.

Many civilizations arose in Ecuador, such as the Valdivia Culture and Machalilla Culture on the coast, the Quitus (near present-day Quito), and the Cañari (near present-day Cuenca).

In the highland Andes mountains, where life was more sedentary, groups of tribes cooperated and formed villages; thus the first nations based on agricultural resources and the domestication of animals formed. Eventually, through wars and marriage alliances of their leaders, groups of nations formed confederations.

When the Incas arrived, they found that these confederations were so developed that it took the Incas two generations of rulers—Topa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac—to absorb them into the Inca Empire. People belonging to the confederations that gave them the most problems were deported to distant areas of Peru, Bolivia, and north Argentina. Similarly, a number of loyal Inca subjects from Peru and Bolivia were brought to Ecuador to prevent rebellion. Thus, the region of highland Ecuador became part of the Inca Empire in 1463 sharing the same language.

In contrast, when the Incas made incursions into coastal Ecuador and the eastern Amazon jungles of Ecuador, they found both the environment and indigenous people more hostile. Moreover, when the Incas tried to subdue them, these indigenous people withdrew to the interior and resorted to guerrilla tactics. As a result, Inca expansion into the Amazon Basin and the Pacific coast of Ecuador was hampered. …

According to the CIA World Factbook, Ecuador has a total area of 283,571 km (109,487 sq mi), including the Galápagos Islands. Of this, 276,841 km (106,889 sq mi) is land and 6,720 km (2,595 sq mi) water. The total area, according to the Ecuadorian government's foreign ministry, is 256,370 km (98,985 sq mi). The Galápagos Islands are sometimes considered part of Oceania, which would thus make Ecuador a transcontinental country under certain definitions. Ecuador is bigger than the South America countries Uruguay, Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana.

Ecuador lies between latitudes 2°N and 5°S, bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, and has 2,337 km (1,452 mi) of coastline. It has 2,010 km (1,250 mi) of land boundaries, with Colombia in the north (with a 590 km (367 mi) border) and Peru in the east and south (with a 1,420 km (882 mi) border). It is the westernmost country that lies on the equator.

Ecuador's capital and second largest city is Quito, which is in the province of Pichincha in the Sierra region. It is the second-highest capital city with an elevation of 2,850 meters. Ecuador's largest city is Guayaquil, in the Guayas Province. Cotopaxi, just south of Quito, is one of the world's highest active volcanoes. The top of Mount Chimborazo (6,268 m, or 20,560 ft, above sea level), Ecuador's tallest mountain, is the most distant point from the center of the Earth on the Earth's surface because of the ellipsoid shape of the planet. The Andes is the watershed divisor between the Amazon watershed, which runs to the east, and the Pacific, including the north–south rivers Mataje, Santiago, Esmeraldas, Chone, Guayas, Jubones, and Puyango-Tumbes.

There is great variety in the climate, largely determined by altitude. It is mild year-round in the mountain valleys, with a humid subtropical climate in coastal areas and rainforest in lowlands. The Pacific coastal area has a tropical climate with a severe rainy season. The climate in the Andean highlands is temperate and relatively dry, and the Amazon basin on the eastern side of the mountains shares the climate of other rainforest zones.

Because of its location at the equator, Ecuador experiences little variation in daylight hours during the course of a year. Both sunrise and sunset occur each day at the two six o'clock hours.

The country has seen its seven glaciers lose 54.4% of their surface in forty years. …

The Ecuadorian State consists of five branches of government: the Executive Branch, the Legislative Branch, the Judicial Branch, the Electoral Branch, and Transparency and Social Control.

Ecuador is governed by a democratically elected president for a four-year term. The president of Ecuador exercises power from the presidential Palacio de Carondelet in Quito. The current constitution was written by the Ecuadorian Constituent Assembly elected in 2007, and was approved by referendum in 2008. Since 1936, voting is compulsory for all literate persons aged 18–65, optional for all other citizens over the age of 16.

The executive branch includes 23 ministries. Provincial governors and councilors (mayors, aldermen, and parish boards) are directly elected. The National Assembly of Ecuador meets throughout the year except for recesses in July and December. There are thirteen permanent committees. Members of the National Court of Justice are appointed by the National Judicial Council for nine-year terms.

According to International IDEA's Global State of Democracy (GSoD) Indices and Democracy Tracker, Ecuador performs in the mid-range on overall democratic measures, with particular strengths in freedom of religion, inclusive suffrage, and electoral participation.

The executive branch is led by the president. The president is accompanied by the vice-president, elected for four years (with the ability to be re-elected only once). As head of state and chief government official, the president is responsible for public administration including the appointing of national coordinators, ministers, ministers of State and public servants. The executive branch defines foreign policy, appoints the Chancellor of the Republic, as well as ambassadors and consuls, being the ultimate authority over the Armed Forces of Ecuador, National Police of Ecuador, and appointing authorities. The acting president's wife receives the title of First Lady of Ecuador.

The legislative branch is embodied by the National Assembly, which is headquartered in the city of Quito in the Legislative Palace, and consists of 137 assemblymen, divided into ten committees and elected for a four-year term. …

Ecuador has a developing economy that is highly dependent on commodities, namely petroleum and agricultural products. The country is classified as an upper-middle-income country. Ecuador's economy is the eighth largest in Latin America and experienced an average growth of 4.6% between 2000 and 2006. From 2007 to 2012, Ecuador's GDP grew at an annual average of 4.3 percent, above the average for Latin America and the Caribbean, which was 3.5%, according to the United Nations' Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Ecuador was able to maintain relatively superior growth during the 2008 financial crisis. In January 2009, the Central Bank of Ecuador (BCE) put the 2010 growth forecast at 6.88%. In 2011, its GDP grew at 8% and ranked third highest in Latin America, behind Argentina (2nd) and Panama (1st). Between 1999 and 2007, GDP doubled, reaching $65,490 million according to BCE. The inflation rate until January 2008, was about 1.14%, the highest in the past year, according to the government. The monthly unemployment rate remained at about 6 and 8 percent from December 2007 until September 2008; however, it went up to about 9 percent in October and dropped again in November 2008 to 8 percent. Unemployment mean annual rate for 2009 in Ecuador was 8.5% because the global economic crisis continued to affect the Latin American economies. From this point, unemployment rates started a downward trend: 7.6% in 2010, 6.0% in 2011, and 4.8% in 2012.

The extreme poverty rate declined significantly between 1999 and 2010. In 2001, it was estimated at 40% of the population, while by 2011 the figure dropped to 17.4% of the total population. This is explained to an extent by emigration and the economic stability achieved after adopting the U.S. dollar as official means of transaction (before 2000, the Ecuadorian sucre was prone to rampant inflation). However, starting in 2008, with the bad economic performance of the nations where most Ecuadorian emigrants work, the reduction of poverty has been realized through social spending, mainly in education and health.

Oil accounts for 40% of exports and contributes to maintaining a positive trade balance. Since the late 1960s, the exploitation of oil increased production, and proven reserves are estimated at 6.51 billion barrels as of 2011. …

Ecuador's population is ethnically diverse and the 2021 estimates put Ecuador's population at 17,797,737. The largest ethnic group (as of 2010) is the Mestizos, who are mixed race people of Amerindian and European descent, typically from Spanish colonists, and constitute about 71% of the population (although including the Montubio, a term used for coastal Mestizo population, brings this up to about 79%).

The White Ecuadorians are a minority, accounting for 6.1% of the population of Ecuador, and can be found throughout all of Ecuador, primarily around the urban areas. Even though Ecuador's white population during its colonial era were mainly descendants from Spain, today Ecuador's white population is a result of a mixture of European immigrants, predominantly from Spain with people from Italy, Germany, France, and Switzerland who have settled in the early 20th century. In addition, there is a small European Jewish (Ecuadorian Jews) population, who live mainly in Quito and to a lesser extent in Guayaquil. 5,000 Romani people live in Ecuador.

Ecuador also has a small population of Asian origins, mainly those from West Asia, like the economically well off descendants of Lebanese and Palestinian immigrants, who are either Christian or Muslim (see Islam in Ecuador), and an East Asian community mainly consisting of those of Japanese and Chinese descent, whose ancestors arrived as miners, farmhands and fishermen in the late 19th century.

Amerindians account for 7% of the current population. The mostly rural Montubio population of the coastal provinces of Ecuador, who might be classified as Pardo account for 7.4% of the population.

The Afro-Ecuadorians are a minority population (7%) in Ecuador, that includes the Mulattos and zambos, and are largely based in the Esmeraldas province and to a lesser degree in the predominantly Mestizo provinces of Coastal Ecuador – Guayas and Manabi. In the Highland Andes where a predominantly Mestizo, white and Amerindian population exist, the African presence is almost non-existent except for a small community in the province of Imbabura called Chota Valley.

The five largest cities in the country are Quito (2.78 million inhabitants), Guayaquil (2.72 million inhabitants), Cuenca (636,996 inhabitants), Santo Domingo (458,580 inhabitants), and Ambato (387,309 inhabitants). …