Nicaragua officially the
Republic of Nicaragua , is a
representative democraticElectoral democracies require a majority of the votes cast. Many representative democracies are constitutional republics in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".- Criticisms :...
republic. It is the largest country in
Central AmericaManagua
Guatemala City
San Salvador
San Pedro Sula
Panama City
San José, Costa Rica
Santa Ana, El Salvador
León
San Miguel|-|}...
with an area of 130,373 km
2. The country is bordered by
HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
to the north and
Costa RicaCosta Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally...
to the south. The
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
lies to the west of the country, the
Caribbean SeaThe Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean situated in the tropics of the Western hemisphere, bounded to the south and west by the American landmass, with the North Atlantic Ocean proper to the northeast and the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest...
to the east. Falling within the
tropicsThe tropics,the tropics are very hot. hi everyone! peace out!seated in the equatorial regions of the world, are limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately 23°26' N latitude and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at 23°26' S latitude...
, Nicaragua sits between
11 degreesThe 11th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 11 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Africa, the Indian Ocean, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, South America and the Atlantic Ocean....
and
14 degrees northThe 14th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 14 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean....
of the
EquatorThe equator is the intersection of the Earth's surface with the plane perpendicular to the Earth's axis of rotation and containing the Earth's center of mass. In simpler language, it is an imaginary line on the Earth's surface equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole that divides the Earth...
, in the
Northern HemisphereThe Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of the equator—the word hemisphere literally means 'half sphere'. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
. Nicaragua's capital city is
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
, with approximately one-fourth of Nicaraguans living there.
Etymology
The origin of the name "Nicaragua" is somewhat unclear; one theory is that it is a portmanteau coined by Spanish colonists based upon the name of local chief
NicaraoNicarao is the name of the then-leader and/or the capital city of the most populous indigenous tribe when the Spanish arrived in Nicaragua. Gil González Dávila, who first explored the area, came up with this Central American country's name by combining Nicarao and the Spanish word Agua, meaning...
at that time, and the
Spanish languageSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
word for water "agua". Another theory is that it may have meant "surrounded by water" in an indigenous language. In both cases the name appears to reference either the country's two large freshwater lakes,
Lake NicaraguaLake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada is a vast freshwater lake in Nicaragua of tectonic origin. With an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 21st largest lake in the world and only slightly smaller than Lake Titicaca...
(19th largest in the world) and
Lake ManaguaLake Managua is a lake in Nicaragua. The Spanish name is Lago de Managua or Lago Xolotlán. At 1,042 km², it is approximately 65 kilometres long and 25 kilometres wide...
, or the fact that it is bounded on the east and the west coasts by oceans.
History
Pre-Columbian history
In
Pre-ColumbianThe Pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the...
times, in what is now known as Nicaragua, the
Indigenous peopleThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
were part of the
Intermediate AreaThe Intermediate Area is an archaeological geographical area of the Americas that was defined in its clearest form by Gordon R. Willey in his 1971 book An Introduction to American Archaeology, Vol. 2: South America...
located between the
MesoamericaMesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries...
n and
AndeanThe Andes are the world's longest exposed mountain range. They lie as a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America...
cultural regions and within the influence of the
Isthmo-ColombianThe Isthmo-Colombian area was defined in a chapter by John W. Hoopes and Oscar Fonseca Z. in the 2003 book Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia. It is defined as a cultural area encompassing those territories occupied by speakers of the Chibchan languages at the time of...
area. It was the point where the Mesoamerican and South American native cultures met. This is confirmed by the
ancient footprints of AcahualincaThe Ancient footprints of Acahualinca exist in Managua, Nicaragua near the southern shore of Lake Managua . The region was once called "El Cauce"...
, along with other archaeological evidence, mainly in the form of ceramics and statues made of volcanic stone like the ones found on the island of
ZapateraZapatera is a shield volcano located in the southern part of Nicaragua. It forms the island of Isla Zapatera on the Lake Nicaragua. Isla Zapatera constitutes one of 78 protected areas of Nicaragua....
and
petroglyphPetroglyphs are images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, pecking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...
s found on
OmetepeOmetepe is an island formed by two volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua in the Republic of Nicaragua. Its name derives from the Nahuatl words ome and tepetl , meaning two mountains....
island.
The
PipilThe Pipil are an indigenous people who live in western El Salvador. Their language is a dialect of Nahuatl called Nahuat or Pipil. Pipil oral tradition holds that they migrated out of central Mexico...
migrated from Central Mexico after 500 CE.
At the end of the 15th century, western Nicaragua was inhabited by several indigenous peoples related by culture to the Mesoamerican civilisations and by language to the
Mesoamerican Linguistic AreaThe Mesoamerican Linguistic Area is a sprachbund containing many of the languages natively spoken in the cultural area of Mesoamerica. This sprachbund is defined by an array of syntactic, lexical and phonological traits as well as a number of ethnolinguistic traits found in the languages of...
. They were primarily farmers who lived in towns, organized into small
kingdomsThe person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch. It was a common form of government in the world during the ancient and medieval times. A Monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or...
. Meanwhile, the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua was inhabited by other peoples, mostly
chibchaChibcha, also known as Muisca or Mosca, is "officially" an extinct Chibchan language of Colombia, formerly spoken by the Muisca people. The language was banned by King Charles III of Spain on May 10, 1770, as part of a de-indigenization project and remained so until the constitution of 1991 was...
related groups, that had migrated from what is now
ColombiaColombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the northwest by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean...
. They lived a less sedentary life based on hunting and gathering. The people of eastern Nicaragua appear to have traded with, and been influenced by, the native peoples of the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
, as round thatched huts and canoes, both typical of the Caribbean, were common in eastern Nicaragua. In the west and highland areas, occupying the territory between
Lake NicaraguaLake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada is a vast freshwater lake in Nicaragua of tectonic origin. With an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 21st largest lake in the world and only slightly smaller than Lake Titicaca...
and the Pacific Coast, the Niquirano were governed by chief
NicaraoNicarao is the name of the then-leader and/or the capital city of the most populous indigenous tribe when the Spanish arrived in Nicaragua. Gil González Dávila, who first explored the area, came up with this Central American country's name by combining Nicarao and the Spanish word Agua, meaning...
, or Nicaragua, a rich ruler who lived in Nicaraocali, now the city of Rivas. The
ChorotegaChorotega is the name of an indigenous people of Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The ethnic population number around 795 according to the ethnologue 2000 survey...
lived in the central region of Nicaragua. These two groups had intimate contact with the Spanish conquerors, paving the way for the racial mix of native and European stock now known as
mestizoMestizo is a Spanish and Portuguese term that was used in the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire to refer to Latin people of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry in the Americas....
s. However, within three decades an estimated Indian population of one million plummeted, as approximately half of the indigenous people in western Nicaragua died from the rapid spread of new
diseaseA disease or medical condition isan abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and signs...
s brought by the
SpaniardsSpanish people or Spaniards constitute the nationality and ethnic group of natives of Spain, a European country in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. The Spanish nationality is in essence made up of regional nationalities, reflecting the complex history of Spain...
, something the indigenous people of the Caribbean coast managed to escape due to the remoteness of the area.
The Spanish conquest
In 1502,
Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere...
was the first European known to have reached what is now Nicaragua as he sailed south along the Central America isthmus. On his fourth voyage Columbus sailed alongside and explored the
Mosquito CoastThe Caribbean Mosquito Coast historically consisted of an area along the Atlantic coast of present-day Nicaragua, named after its native Miskito Indians and long dominated by British interests...
on the east of Nicaragua. The first attempt to conquer what is now known as Nicaragua was by
Gil González DávilaGil González Dávila was a Spanish Conquistador and the discoverer of Nicaragua.González Dávila first appears in historical records in 1508, when he received a royal commission to examine accounts and tax records of estates. He probably traveled soon afterward to Santo Domingo for his assignment,...
, whose Central American exploits began with his arrival in Panama in January 1520. González claimed to have converted some 30,000 indigenous peoples and discovered a possible transisthmian water link. After exploring and gathering gold in the fertile western valleys González was attacked by the indigenous people, some of whom were commanded by
NicaraoNicarao is the name of the then-leader and/or the capital city of the most populous indigenous tribe when the Spanish arrived in Nicaragua. Gil González Dávila, who first explored the area, came up with this Central American country's name by combining Nicarao and the Spanish word Agua, meaning...
and an estimated 3,000 led by chief
DiriangénDiriangen was the legendary tribal leader of the Chorotegas who can rightfully be called the first resistance fighter of the Nicaragua. He fought against the Spanish in the 1520s, keeping them at bay for a time....
. González later returned to
PanamaPanama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of both Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the...
where governor Pedro Arias Dávila attempted to arrest him and confiscate his treasure, some 90,000 pesos of gold. This resulted in González fleeing to
Santo DomingoSanto Domingo, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, estimated at 2,253,437 in 2006. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
.
It was not until 1524 that the first Spanish permanent settlements were founded.
ConquistadorConquistador is the term widely used to refer to the Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th through the 17th centuries following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...
Francisco Hernández de CórdobaFrancisco Hernández de Córdoba is usually reputed as the founder of Nicaragua, and in fact he founded two important Nicaraguan cities, Granada and León. The currency of Nicaragua is named the córdoba in his memory....
founded two of Nicaragua's principal towns in 1524:
GranadaGranada, with an estimated population of 110,326 , is Nicaragua's fourth most populous city and capital of the Granada Department. Granada is historically one of Nicaragua's most important cities both economically and politically...
on
Lake NicaraguaLake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada is a vast freshwater lake in Nicaragua of tectonic origin. With an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 21st largest lake in the world and only slightly smaller than Lake Titicaca...
was the first settlement and
LeónLeón is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. It was founded by the Spaniards as Santiago de los Caballeros de León and rivals Granada, Nicaragua, in the number of historic Spanish colonial homes and churches...
east of
Lake ManaguaLake Managua is a lake in Nicaragua. The Spanish name is Lago de Managua or Lago Xolotlán. At 1,042 km², it is approximately 65 kilometres long and 25 kilometres wide...
came after. Córdoba soon found it necessary to prepare defenses for the cities and go on the offensive against incursions by the other conquistadores. Córdoba was later publicly
beheadedDecapitation is the separation of the head of an animal from its body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by means of a guillotine...
following a power struggle with Pedrarias Dávila, his tomb and remains were discovered some 500 years later in the
Ruins of León ViejoLeón is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. It was founded by the Spaniards as Santiago de los Caballeros de León and rivals Granada, Nicaragua, in the number of historic Spanish colonial homes and churches...
.
The inevitable clash between the Spanish forces did not impede their devastation of the indigenous population. The Indian civilization was destroyed. The series of battles came to be known as
The War of the Captains. By 1529, the conquest of Nicaragua was complete. Several conquistadores came out winners, and some were executed or murdered. Pedrarias Dávila was a winner; although he had lost control of Panama, he had moved to Nicaragua and established his base in León. Through adroit diplomatic machinations, he became the first governor of the colony. The land was parceled out to the conquistadores. The area of most interest was the western portion. Many indigenous people were soon enslaved to develop and maintain "estates" there. Others were put to work in
minesMining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock salt and potash...
in northern Nicaragua, few were killed in warfare, and the great majority were sent as slaves to other New World Spanish colonies, for significant profit to the new landed aristocracy. Many of the indigenous people died as a result of disease and neglect by the Spaniards who controlled everything necessary for their subsistence.
From colony to nation
In 1536, the Viceroyalty of New Spain was established. By 1570, the southern part of New Spain was designated the
Captaincy General of GuatemalaThe Captaincy General of Guatemala , also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala , was an administrative division in Spanish America which covered much of Central America, including what are now Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Chiapas...
. The area of Nicaragua was divided into administrative "parties" with
LeónLeón is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. It was founded by the Spaniards as Santiago de los Caballeros de León and rivals Granada, Nicaragua, in the number of historic Spanish colonial homes and churches...
as the capital. In 1610, the
MomotomboMomotombo is a stratovolcano in Nicaragua, not far from the city of León. It stands on the shores of Lago de Managua. An eruption of the volcano in 1610 forced inhabitants of an early Spanish settlement nearby to relocate...
volcano erupted, destroying the capital. It was rebuilt northwest of what is now known as the Ruins of Old León. Nicaragua became a part of the
Mexican EmpireThe Mexican Empire was the name of modern Mexico on two non-consecutive occasions in the 19th century when it was ruled by an emperor.-First Mexican Empire:...
and then gained its independence as a part of the
United Provinces of Central AmericaThe Federal Republic of Central America, after known as the United Provinces of Central America in its first year of creation, was a short-lived sovereign state in Central America, which consisted of the territories of the former Captaincy General of Guatemala. A republican democracy, it existed...
in 1821 and as an independent
republicA republic is a form of government in which the head of state is not a monarch and the people have an impact on its government. The word 'republic' is derived from the Latin phrase res publica which can be translated as "a public affair".Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their...
in its own right in 1838. The
Mosquito CoastThe Caribbean Mosquito Coast historically consisted of an area along the Atlantic coast of present-day Nicaragua, named after its native Miskito Indians and long dominated by British interests...
based on the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
coast was claimed by the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
and its predecessors as a
protectorateA protectorate, in international law, is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity. In exchange for this, the protectorate usually accepts specified obligations, which may vary greatly, depending on the real nature of...
from 1655 to 1850; this was delegated to
HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
in 1859 and transferred to Nicaragua in 1860, though it remained
autonomousAn autonomous area is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority. Typically it is either geographically distinct from the country or is populated by a national minority. Countries that include autonomous areas are often federacies...
until 1894.
José Santos ZelayaJosé Santos Zelaya López was the 49th President of Nicaragua from 25 July 1893 to 21 December 1909.-Early Life:...
, president of Nicaragua from 1893-1909, managed to negotiate for the annexation of this region to the rest of Nicaragua. In his honour the entire region was named Zelaya.
Much of Nicaragua's independence was characterized by rivalry between the
liberalThe Constitutionalist Liberal Party is an opposition political party in Nicaragua. At the legislative elections, held on 5 November 2006, the party won 25 of 92 seats in the National Assembly....
elite of León and the
conservativeThe Conservative Party is a conservative political party in Nicaragua.The party's colour is green and its emblem is a torch of freedom in a circle. Its slogan is DIOS ORDEN JUSTICIA , often depicted on the three sides of a triangle.-History:The conservative party is the oldest currently existing...
elite of Granada. The rivalry often degenerated into
civil warA civil war is a war between organized groups within a single nation state, or, less commonly, between two nations created from a formerly-united nation state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the nation or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies...
, particularly during the 1840s and 1850s. Initially invited by the Liberals in 1855 to join their struggle against the Conservatives, a United States adventurer named William Walker (later executed in Honduras) set himself up as president of Nicaragua, after conducting a farcical election in 1856. Costa Rica, Honduras and other Central American countries united to drive him out of Nicaragua in 1857, after which a period of three decades of Conservative rule ensued.
In the 1800s Nicaragua experienced a wave of immigration, primarily from Europe. In particular, families from Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Belgium moved to Nicaragua to set up businesses with money they brought from Europe. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, and also newspapers, hotels and banks.
Throughout the late nineteenth century the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
(and several other European powers) considered a scheme to build a
canal across NicaraguaThe Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal is a proposed waterway that would connect the Caribbean Sea, and therefore the Atlantic Ocean, with the Pacific Ocean through Nicaragua, in Central America...
linking the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. A bill was put before the U.S. Congress in 1899 to build the canal, but it was not passed, and instead the construction of the
Panama CanalThe Panama Canal is a ship canal which joins the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific ocean. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, it had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn...
began.
United States involvement (1909 - 1933)
In 1909, the United States provided political support to conservative-led forces rebelling against President Zelaya. U.S. motives included differences over the proposed
Nicaragua CanalThe Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal is a proposed waterway that would connect the Caribbean Sea, and therefore the Atlantic Ocean, with the Pacific Ocean through Nicaragua, in Central America...
, Nicaragua's potential as a destabilizing influence in the region, and Zelaya's attempts to regulate foreign access to Nicaraguan natural resources. On November 18, 1909, U.S. warships were sent to the area after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) were executed by order of Zelaya. The U.S. justified the intervention by claiming to protect U.S. lives and property. Zelaya resigned later that year.
In August 1912 the President of Nicaragua,
Adolfo DíazAdolfo Díaz was the 54th and 61st president of Nicaragua between 9 May 1911 and 1 January 1917 and between 14 November 1926 and 1 January 1929...
, requested that the Secretary of War, General Luis Mena, resign for fear that he was leading an insurrection. Mena fled Managua with his brother, the Chief of Police of Managua, to start an insurrection. When the U.S. Legation asked President Díaz to ensure the safety of American citizens and property during the insurrection he replied that he could not and that... U.S. Marines occupied Nicaragua from 1912 to 1933, except for a nine month period beginning in 1925. From 1910 to 1926, the conservative party ruled Nicaragua. The
Chamorro familyThe Chamorro family has its origin in Spain. A branch of the family became prominent in Nicaragua in the 18th century and its influence continues to the present. Historically, the Chamorros have been closely associated with the Conservatives, but the Sandinista Revolution has divided their...
, which had long dominated the party, effectively controlled the government during that period. In 1914, the
Bryan-Chamorro TreatyThe Bryan-Chamorro Treaty was signed on August 5, 1914 under the approval of the Taft administration. The Wilson administration changed the treaty by adding a provision similar in language to that of the Platt Amendment, which would have authorized U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua...
was signed, giving the U.S. control over the proposed canal, as well as leases for potential canal defenses. Following the evacuation of U.S. marines, another violent conflict between liberals and conservatives took place in 1926, known as the Constitutionalist War, which resulted in a coalition government and the return of U.S. Marines.
From 1927 until 1933, Gen.
Augusto César SandinoAugusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion against the U.S. military presence in Nicaragua between 1927 and 1933. He was labeled as a bandit by the U.S. government, and his exploits made him a hero throughout much of Latin America, where he became a...
led a sustained
guerrillaGuerrilla warfare is the irregular warfare warfare and combat in which a small group of combatants use mobile military tactics in the form of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army....
war first against the Conservative regime and subsequently against the U.S. Marines, who withdrew upon the establishment of a new Liberal government. Sandino was the only Nicaraguan general to refuse to sign the
el tratado del Espino Negro agreement and then headed up to the northern mountains of Las Segovias, where he fought the
U.S. MarinesThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States armed forces responsible for providing force projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to rapidly deliver combined-arms task forces. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
for over five years. The revolt finally forced the United States to compromise and leave the country. When the Americans left in 1933, they set up the
Guardia NacionalIn Nicaragua, the National Guard was a militia and a gendarmerie created during the occupation of that country by the United States from 1909 to 1933. It became notorious for human rights abuses and corruption under the regime of the Somoza family.- Creation :Prior to the U.S...
(National Guard), a combined military and police force trained and equipped by the Americans and designed to be loyal to U.S. interests.
Anastasio Somoza GarcíaAnastasio Somoza García was officially the 65th and 69th President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1937 to 1 May 1947 and from 21 May 1950 to 29 September 1956, but ruled effectively as dictator from 1936 until his assassination.-Biography:Somoza was born in San Marcos, Carazo Department in...
, a close friend of the American government, was put in charge. He was one of the three rulers of the country, the others being Sandino and the President
Juan Bautista SacasaJuan Bautista Sacasa Sacasa was the 63rd President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1933 to 9 June 1936. He was the eldest son of Roberto Sacasa, 44th and 46th President of Nicaragua, and wife and cousin Ángela Sacasa Cuadra...
.
After the US Marines withdrew from Nicaragua in January 1933, Sandino and the newly elected Sacasa government reached an agreement by which he would cease his guerrilla activities in return for amnesty, a grant of land for an agricultural colony, and retention of an armed band of 100 men for a year. But a growing hostility between Sandino and Somoza led Somoza to order the assassination of Sandino. Fearing future armed opposition from Sandino, Somoza invited him to a meeting in Managua, where Sandino was assassinated on February 21 of 1934 by the National Guard. Hundreds of men, women, and children were executed later.
The Somoza Dynasty (1936 - 1979)
Nicaragua has experienced several military dictatorships, the longest one being the rule of the Somoza family for much of the 20th century. The Somoza family came to power as part of a US-engineered pact in 1927 that stipulated the formation of the Guardia Nacional, or the National Guard, to replace the U.S. marines that had long reigned in the country. Somoza slowly eliminated officers in the National Guard who might have stood in his way, and then deposed Sacasa and became president on January 1, 1937 in a
rigged electionElectoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about a election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
. Somoza was 35 at the time.
Nicaragua declared war on Germany on May 7, 1918, during
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. No troops were sent to the war but Somoza did seize the occasion to confiscate attractive properties held by German-Nicaraguans, the best-known of which was the
MontelimarMontelimar is a beach located on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua in the department of Managua. Montelimar consists of 3 km of white sand beach. The main tourist attraction is the Barcelo Hotel and Resort...
estate which today operates as a privately owned luxury resort and casino. In 1945 Nicaragua was the first country to ratify the
UN CharterThe United Nations Charter is the treaty that forms and establishes the international organization called the United Nations. It was signed at the Herbst Theatre of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on June 26, 1945, by 50 of the 51 original...
.
Throughout his years as dictator, "Tacho" Somoza 'ruled Nicaragua with a strong arm'. He had three main sources for his power: control of Nicaraguan economy, military support, and support from the U.S.
Somoza used the National Guard to force Sacasa to resign, and took control of the country in 1937, destroying any potential armed resistance. Not only did he have military control, but he controlled the National Liberal Party (LPN), which in turn controlled the legislature and judicial systems, giving him complete political power. Despite his complete control, on September 21, 1956, Somoza was shot by
Rigoberto López PérezRigoberto López Pérez was a Nicaraguan poet and music composer. He was the assassin of Anastasio Somoza García, the longtime dictator of Nicaragua....
, a 27-year-old liberal Nicaraguan poet. Somoza was attending a PLN party to celebrate his nomination for the Presidency. He died eight days later, unable to recover from his fatal wound. After his father's death,
Luis Somoza DebayleLuis Anastasio Somoza Debayle was the 70th President of Nicaragua from 29 September 1956 to 1 May 1963, but was effectively dictator of the country from 1956 until his death. He was born in León...
, the eldest son of the late dictator, was appointed President by the congress and officially took charge of the country. He is remembered by some for being moderate, but was in power only for a few years and then died of a
heart attackMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, is the interruption of blood supply to part of the heart, causing some heart cells to die...
. Then came president
René Schick GutiérrezRené Schick Gutiérrez was the 71st President of Nicaragua from 1 May 1963 to 3 August 1966, but was considered puppet of Luis Somoza. He was born in León, Nicaragua and died in Managua and was a relative of his successor Lorenzo Guerrero, the 72nd President of Nicaragua....
whom most Nicaraguans viewed "as nothing more than a
puppetA puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by a puppeteer. It is usually a depiction of a human character, and is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre...
of the Somozas". Somoza's brother,
Anastasio Somoza DebayleAnastasio Somoza Debayle was officially the 73rd and 76th President of Nicaragua from 1 May 1967 to 1 May 1972 and from 1 December 1974 to 17 July 1979. As head of the National Guard, he was ruler of the country from 1967 to 1979...
, a West Point graduate, succeeded his father in charge of the National Guard, controlled the country, and officially took the presidency after Schick.
Nicaragua experienced economic growth during the 1960s and 1970s largely as a result of industrialization, and became one of Central America's most developed nations despite its political instability. Due to its stable and high growth economy, foreign investments grew, primarily from U.S. companies such as Citigroup, Sears, Westinghouse and Coca Cola. However, the capital city of
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
suffered a
major earthquakeThe 1972 Nicaragua earthquake was an earthquake that occurred at 12:29 a.m. local time on Saturday, December 23, 1972 in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. With a magnitude of 6.2, it occurred at a depth of about 5 kilometers beneath the center of the city. Within an hour after the main shock,...
in 1972 which destroyed nearly 90% of the city creating major losses. It leveled a 600-square block area in the heart of Managua. Some Nicaraguan historians see the 1972 earthquake that devastated
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
as the final 'nail in the coffin' for Somoza. Instead of helping to rebuild Managua, Somoza siphoned off relief money to help pay for National Guard luxury homes, while the homeless poor had to make do with hastily constructed wooden shacks. The mishandling of relief money also prompted
Pittsburgh PiratesThe Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League Baseball club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They play in the Central Division of the National League, and are five-time World Series Champions, in addition to the distinction of playing in the first modern World Series. The Pirates are also often...
star
Roberto ClementeRoberto Clemente Walker was a professional baseball player and a Major League Baseball right fielder. He was born in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the youngest of seven children. On November 14, 1964, he married Vera Zabala at San Fernando Church in Carolina. The couple had three children: Roberto Jr.,...
to personally fly to Managua on 31 December 1972, but he died enroute in an airplane accident. Even the economic elite were reluctant to support Somoza, as he had acquired monopolies in industries that were key to rebuilding the nation, and did not allow the businessmen to compete with the profits that would result. In 1973 (the year of reconstruction) many new buildings were built, but the level of corruption in the government prevented further growth. Strikes and demonstrations developed as citizens became increasingly angry and politically mobilized. The elite were angry that Somoza was asking them to pay new emergency taxes to further his own ends. As a result, more of the young elite joined the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN). The ever increasing tensions and anti-government uprisings slowed growth in the last two years of the Somoza dynasty.
Nicaraguan Revolution
In 1961
Carlos FonsecaFor the Brazilian boxer with the same name see Carlos Fonseca Carlos Fonseca Amador was a Nicaraguan teacher and a founder of the Sandinista National Liberation Front...
, turned back to the historical figure of Sandino, and along with 2 others founded the
Sandinista National Liberation FrontThe Sandinista National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish...
(FSLN). The FSLN was a tiny party throughout most of the 1960s, but Somoza's utter hatred of it and his heavy-handed treatment of anyone he suspected to be a
SandinistaThe Sandinista National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish...
sympathizer gave many ordinary Nicaraguans the idea that the Sandinistas were much stronger.
After the 1972 earthquake and Somoza's brazen corruption, mishandling of relief, and refusal to rebuild Managua, the ranks of the Sandinistas were flooded with young disaffected Nicaraguans who no longer had anything to lose. These economic problems propelled the Sandinistas in their struggle against Somoza by leading many middle- and upper-class Nicaraguans to see the Sandinistas as the only hope for removing the brutal Somoza regime. In December 1974, a group of FSLN held some Managuan partygoers hostage until the Somozan government met their demands for a large ransom and free transport to Cuba. Somoza granted this, then subsequently sent his National Guard out into the countryside to look for the so-called 'terrorists'. While searching, the National Guard pillaged villages and imprisoned, tortured, raped, and executed hundreds of villagers. This invariably led to the Roman Catholic Church withdrawing any and all support of the Somoza regime. On January 10, 1978, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the editor of the national newspaper
La PrensaLa Prensa is a Nicaraguan newspaper, with offices in the capital Managua. Its current daily circulation is placed at 42,000.-Early years:La Prensa was founded by Pedro Belli, Gavry Rivas and Enrique Belli on March 2, 1926...
and ardent opponent of Somoza, was assassinated. This is believed to have led to the extreme general disappointment with Somoza. The planners and perpetrators of the murder were at the highest echelons of the Somoza regime and included the dictator's son, “El Chiguin”, the President of Housing, Cornelio Hueck, the Attorney General, and Pedro Ramos, a close ex-patriot,
CubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean. It consists of the island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is...
n ally who commercialized
blood plasmaBlood plasma is the yellow liquid component of blood, in which the blood cells in whole blood would normally be suspended. It makes up about 55% of the total blood volume. It is mostly water and contains dissolved proteins, glucose, clotting factors, mineral ions, hormones and carbon dioxide...
.
The Sandinistas, supported by some of the populace, elements of the Catholic Church, and regional and international governments such as President Jimmy Carter of the United States, took power in July 1979. A group of prominent citizens, known as Los Doce, denounced the Somoza regime and said that "there can be no dialogue with Somoza...because he is the principal obstacle to all rational understanding...through the long dark history of
Somocismo, dialogues with the dictatorship have only served to strengthen it..." Somoza fled the country and eventually ended up in
ParaguayParaguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay , is one of the two landlocked countries which lie entirely within the Western Hemisphere, the other being Bolivia, both in South America....
, where he was assassinated in September 1980, allegedly by members of the Argentinian Revolutionary Workers Party. To begin the task of establishing a new government, they created a Council (or ) of National Reconstruction, made up of five members Sandinista militants
Daniel OrtegaJosé Daniel Ortega Saavedra is the current President of Nicaragua, having served since 10 January 2007. He previously served as the 79th President, between 10 January 1985 and 25 April 1990...
and Moises Hassan, novelist
Sergio Ramírez MercadoSergio Ramírez Mercado is a leading Nicaraguan writer and intellectual who served in the leftist Government Junta of National Reconstruction and as Vice President of the country 1985-1990 under the presidency of Daniel Ortega.Born in Masatepe in 1942, he published his first book, Cuentos, in 1963...
(a member of
Los DoceEl Grupo de los Doce, or Group of Twelve, were a dozen members of the Nicaraguan establishment whose support for the Sandinista National Liberation Front struggle against dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle played a pivotal role in the acceptance of the Sandinistas by foreign and domestic...
"the Twelve"), businessman
Alfonso Robelo CallejasLuis Alfonso Robelo Callejas , a Nicaraguan businessman, was the founder of the Nicaraguan Democratic Movement . He was one of the "moderates" on the five-members Junta of National Reconstruction that the Sandinistas claimed would rule Nicaragua following the overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
, and
Violeta Barrios de ChamorroVioleta Barrios Torres de Chamorro is a Nicaraguan political leader, former president and publisher. She became president of Nicaragua on April 25, 1990, when she unseated Daniel Ortega...
(the widow of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro). The latter two later resigned from the junta refusing to take part in the marxist-leninist policies of the Sandinista Movement, this gave Violeta Barrios de Chamorro a growing level of support by a large percentage of the Nicaraguan population who also opposed the socialist regime. The preponderance of power, however, remained with the Sandinistas and their mass organizations, including the Sandinista Workers' Federation , the
Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan WomenThe Luisa Amanda Espinoza Association of Nicaraguan Women was initially established in 1977 under the name Association of Women Concerned about National Crisis . AMPRONAC was part of the Sandinista network which was set on bringing down the Anastasio Somoza García regime in 1979...
, and the National Union of Farmers and Ranchers .
On the Atlantic Coast a small uprising also occurred in support of the Sandinistas. This event is often overlooked in histories about the Sandinista revolution. A group of Creoles led by a native of
BluefieldsBluefields is the capital of the municipality of the same name, and of Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur in Nicaragua. It was also capital of the former Zelaya Department, which was divided into North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions...
, Dexter Hooker (aka Commander Abel), raided a Somoza-owned business to gain access to food, guns and money before heading off to join Sandinista fighters who had liberated the city of
El RamaEl Rama is a municipality in the Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur department of Nicaragua.It is along the Escondido River which branches off into three other rivers: the Sumi, Rama, and Escondido. It is home to an important Atlantic/Caribbean port.-See also:...
. The 'Black Sandinistas' returned to Bluefields on July 19, 1979 and took the city without a fight. However, the Black Sandinistas were challenged by a group of
mestizoMestizo is a Spanish and Portuguese term that was used in the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire to refer to Latin people of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry in the Americas....
Sandinista fighters. The ensuing standoff between the two groups, with the Black Sandinistas occupying the National Guard barracks (the cuartel) and the mestizo group occupying the Town Hall (Palacio) gave the revolution on the Atlantic Coast a racial dimension which was absent from other parts of the country. The Black Sandinistas were assisted in their power struggle with the Palacio group by the arrival of the Simon Bolivar International Brigade from Costa Rica. One of the brigade's members, an Afro-Costa Rican called Marvin Wright (aka Kalalu) became known for the rousing speeches he would make, which included elements of
Black PowerBlack Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, primarily African Americans in the United States...
ideology in his attempts to unite all the black militias that had formed in Bluefields. The introduction of a racial element into the revolution was not welcomed by the Sandinista National Directorate which expelled Kalalu and the rest of the brigade from Nicaragua and sent them to Panama.
Sandinistas and the Contras
Upon assuming office in 1981,
U.S. PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California .Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s...
condemned the FSLN for joining with Cuba in supporting Marxist revolutionary movements in other
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries such as
El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
. His administration authorized the
CIAThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
to have their paramilitary officers from their elite
Special Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service , responsible for covert action and "special activities". These activities include covert political action and paramilitary operations...
begin financing, arming and training rebels, some of whom were the remnants of Somoza's National Guard, as anti-Sandinista guerrillas that were branded "counter-revolutionary" by leftists ( in Spanish). This was shortened to
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
, a label the anti-socialist forces chose to embrace. Eden Pastora and many of the indigenous guerrilla forces, who were not associated with the "Somozistas," also resisted the Sandinistas. The
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
operated out of camps in the neighboring countries of
HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
to the north and
Costa RicaCosta Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally...
to the south. As was typical in guerrilla warfare, they were engaged in a campaign of economic sabotage in an attempt to combat the Sandinista government and disrupted shipping by planting underwater mines in Nicaragua's
CorintoCorinto is a town of 17,000 on the northwest Pacific coast of Nicaragua in the province of Chinandega. The municipality was founded in 1863 and was named in honour of the Greek city of Corinth.- Economy :...
harbour, an action condemned by the
World CourtThe International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
as illegal. The U.S. also sought to place economic pressure on the Sandinistas, and the Reagan administration imposed a full trade
embargoAn embargo is the prohibition of commerce and trade with a certain country, in order to isolate it and to put its government into a difficult internal situation, given that the effects of the embargo are often able to make its economy suffer from the initiative. It is similar to a blockade, as in...
.
U.S. support for this Nicaraguan insurgency continued in spite of the fact that impartial observers from international groupings such as the
European Economic CommunityThe European Economic Community was an international organisation that existed between 1958 and 1993 which was created to bring about economic integration between Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.It was...
, religious groups sent to monitor the election, and observers from democratic nations such as Canada and the
Republic of IrelandIreland is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921. It is a parliamentary democracy and a republic...
concluded that the Nicaraguan general elections of 1984 were completely free and fair. The Reagan administration disputed these results however, despite the fact that the government of the United States never had any observers in Nicaragua at the time. The elections were not also recognized as legitimate because the Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinator, considered the main opposition group, and the only group of democratic opposition in the country did not participate in the elections. The Nicaraguan Democratic Coordinator did not participate in the elections due to the government's lack of response to its document "A Step Toward Democracy, Free Elections" issued in 1982. The document was asking the government to re-establish all civil rights: freedom of speech, freedom of organization, release of all political prisoners, cease of hostilities against the opposition, lifting the censorship on the media and abolishing all the laws violating humans rights.
After the U.S. Congress prohibited federal funding of the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
in 1983, the Reagan administration continued to back the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
by covertly selling arms to
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
and channeling the proceeds to the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
(the Iran–Contra affair). When this scheme was revealed, Reagan admitted that he knew about the Iranian "arms for hostages" dealings but professed ignorance about the proceeds funding the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
; for this,
National Security CouncilThe White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the President of the...
aide
Lt. Col.Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
Oliver NorthOliver Laurence North is a retired United States Marine Corps officer best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. Currently, he is a political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, and a New York Times best-selling author...
took much of the blame. Senator
John KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, and is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee....
's 1988
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign RelationsThe United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It is charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. The Foreign Relations Committee is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid programs as...
report on Contra-drug links concluded that "senior U.S. policy makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect solution to the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
' funding problems." According to the
National Security ArchiveThe National Security Archive is a 501 non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located within The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1985 by Scott Armstrong, it archives and publishes declassified U.S. government files concerning selected topics of...
, Oliver North had been in contact with
Manuel NoriegaManuel Antonio Noriega is a former general and the military dictator of Panama from 1983 to 1989.He was never, contrary to popular belief, officially the president of Panama, but held the post of "chief executive officer" for a brief period in 1989...
, a
PanamaPanama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of both Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the...
nian general and the
de factoDe facto is a Latin expression that means "by [the] fact". In law, it is meant to mean "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established"...
military
dictatorA dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power with military control but, without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
of Panama from 1983 to 1989 when he was overthrown and captured by a U.S. invading force. He was taken to the United States, tried for drug trafficking, and imprisoned in 1992.
In August 1996,
San Jose Mercury NewsThe San Jose Mercury News is the major daily newspaper in San Jose, California and Silicon Valley. The paper is owned by MediaNews Group. Its headquarters and printing plant are located in North San Jose next to the Nimitz Freeway ....
reporter
Gary WebbGary Webb was a prize-winning American investigative journalist.Webb was best known for his 1996 "Dark Alliance" series of articles written for the San Jose Mercury News and later published as a book. In the three-part series, Webb investigated Nicaraguans linked to the CIA-backed Contras who had...
published a series titled
Dark Alliance, linking the origins of
crack cocaineCrack cocaine, crack or rock is a solid, smokable form of cocaine. It is a freebase form of cocaine that can be made using baking soda or sodium hydroxide, in a process to convert cocaine hydrochloride into methylbenzoylecgonine .-Appearance and characteristics:Crack cocaine as sold on the...
in California to the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
.
Freedom of Information ActThe Freedom of Information Act , as amended, represents the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United States. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 6, 1966 , and went into effect the following year...
inquiries by the National Security Archive and other investigators unearthed a number of documents showing that White House officials, including Oliver North, knew about and supported using money raised via
drug traffickingThe illegal drug trade is a global black market consisting of the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of illegal controlled drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug control laws...
to fund the
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
. Sen. John Kerry's report in 1988 led to the same conclusions; however, major media outlets, the Justice Department, and Reagan denied the allegations.
The International Court of Justice, in regard to the case of Nicaragua v. United States of America in 1984, found; "the United States of America was under an obligation to make reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury caused to Nicaragua by certain breaches of obligations under customary international law and treaty-law committed by the United States of America". But was rejected citing the 'Connally Amendment', which excludes from the International court of Justice's jurisdiction "disputes with regard to matters that are essentially within the jurisdiction of the United States of America, determined by the United States of America"
1990s and the post-Sandinista era
Multi-party democratic elections were held in 1990, which saw the defeat of the Sandinistas by a coalition of anti-Sandinista (from the left and right of the political spectrum) parties led by
Violeta ChamorroVioleta Barrios Torres de Chamorro is a Nicaraguan political leader, former president and publisher. She became president of Nicaragua on April 25, 1990, when she unseated Daniel Ortega...
, the widow of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro. The defeat shocked the Sandinistas as numerous pre-election polls had indicated a sure Sandinista victory and their pre-election rallies had attracted crowds of several hundred thousand people. The unexpected result was subject to a great deal of analysis and comment, and was attributed by commentators such as
Noam ChomskyAvram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as...
and
Brian WillsonS. Brian Willson is a prominent anti-war activist.Willson served, from 1966 to 1970, in the USAF, including several months as a combat security officer in Vietnam. He left the Air Force as a Captain. He subsequently became a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace...
to the U.S./
ContraThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
threats to continue the war if the Sandinistas retained power, the general war-weariness of the Nicaraguan population, and the abysmal Nicaraguan economic situation.
P. J. O'RourkePatrick Jake O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, and writer.O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public...
countered the US centered criticism in "Return of the Death of Communism", "the unfair advantages of using state resources for party ends, about how Sandinista control of the transit system prevented
UNOThe United Nicaraguan Opposition was a Nicaraguan rebel umbrella group formed in 1985, led by the triumvirate of Adolfo Calero, Alfonso Robelo, and Arturo Cruz...
supporters from attending rallies, how Sandinista domination of the army forced soldiers to vote for Ortega and how Sandinista bureaucracy kept $3.3 million of U.S. campaign aid from getting to UNO while
Daniel OrtegaJosé Daniel Ortega Saavedra is the current President of Nicaragua, having served since 10 January 2007. He previously served as the 79th President, between 10 January 1985 and 25 April 1990...
spent millions donated by overseas people and millions and millions more from the Nicaraguan treasury ..."
Exit polls of Nicaraguans reported Chamorro's victory over Ortega was achieved with 55%.
Violeta ChamorroVioleta Barrios Torres de Chamorro is a Nicaraguan political leader, former president and publisher. She became president of Nicaragua on April 25, 1990, when she unseated Daniel Ortega...
was the first woman to be popularly
electedElected is the latest EP by Dutch Progressive metal project Ayreon. It was released on April 25, 2008 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and on April 28 in the rest of Europe. It features the guest performance of Tobias Sammet from Avantasia...
as
PresidentPresident is a title held by many leaders of organizations, companies, trade unions, universities, and countries. Etymologically, a "president" is one who presides, who sits in leadership...
of an American nation and first woman president of Nicaragua and first female president in the Americas. Exit polling convinced Daniel Ortega that the election results were legitimate, and were instrumental in his decision to accept the vote of the people and step down rather than void the election. Nonetheless Ortega vowed that he would govern "desde abajo" (from below), in other words due to his widespread control of institutions and Sandinista individuals in all government agencies, he would still be able to maintain control and govern even without being president.
Chamorro received an economy entirely in ruins. The per capita income of Nicaragua had been reduced by over 80% during the 1980s, and a huge government debt which ascended to US$12 billion primarily due to financial and social costs of the Contra war with the Sandinista-led government. Much to the surprise of the U.S. and the contra forces, Chamorro did not dismantle the
Sandinista Popular ArmyThe Sandinista Popular Army was the military established in 1979 by the new Sandinista government to replace the National Guard, following the overthow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
, though the name was changed to the Nicaraguan Army. Chamorro's main contribution to Nicaragua was the disarmament of groups in the northern and central areas of the country. This provided stability that the country had lacked for over ten years.
In subsequent elections in 1996 Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas of the FSLN were again defeated, this time by
Arnoldo AlemánJosé Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo was the 81st President of Nicaragua from 10 January 1997 to 10 January 2002.-Biography:Alemán was born in Managua and received his early education at the La Salle institute in Managua...
of the
Constitutional Liberal PartyThe Constitutionalist Liberal Party is an opposition political party in Nicaragua. At the legislative elections, held on 5 November 2006, the party won 25 of 92 seats in the National Assembly....
(PLC).
In the 2001 elections the PLC again defeated the FSLN, with
Enrique BolañosEnrique José Bolaños Geyer was the 82nd President of Nicaragua from 10 January 2002 to 10 January 2007. President Bolaños is of Spanish and German heritage and was born in Masaya ....
winning the Presidency. However, President Bolaños subsequently brought forward allegations of money laundering, theft and
corruptionPolitical corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...
against former President Alemán. The ex-president was sentenced to 20 years in prison for
embezzlementEmbezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets, usually financial in nature, by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted. It is a kind of financial fraud...
,
money launderingMoney laundering is the process of creating the appearance that large amounts of money obtained from serious crimes, such as drug trafficking or terrorist activity, originated from a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions with varying definitions...
, and corruption. The Liberal members who were loyal to Alemán and also members of congress reacted angrily, and along with Sandinista parliament members stripped the presidential powers of President Bolaños and his ministers, calling for his resignation and threatening
impeachmentImpeachment is the first of two stages in a specific process for a legislative body to consider whether or not to forcibly remove a government official from office. The impeachment itself brings the charges against the official...
.
The Sandinistas alleged that their support for Bolaños was lost when U.S. Secretary of State
Colin PowellColin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State , serving under President George W. Bush. He was the first African American appointed to that position...
told Bolaños to keep his distance from the FSLN. This "slow motion
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
" was averted partially due to pressure from the Central American presidents who would fail to recognize any movement that removed Bolaños; the U.S., the OAS, and the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 Member States, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community...
also opposed the "slow motion
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
". The proposed constitutional changes that were going to be introduced in 2005 against the Bolaños administration were delayed until January 2007 after the entrance of the new government. Though one day before they were to be enforced, the National Assembly postponed their enforcement until January 2008.
Before the general elections on 5 November 2006, the
National AssemblyThe National Assembly is the legislative branch of the government of Nicaragua.-Composition:The Nicaraguan legislature is a unicameral body....
passed a bill further restricting
abortion in NicaraguaAbortion in Nicaragua is completely illegal. Prior to a change in the law, which took effect on 18 November 2006, the law allowed pregnancies to be terminated for "therapeutic" reasons, but this clause is no longer in effect. -Abortion law in Nicaragua:...
52-0 (9 abstaining, 29 absent). President
Enrique BolañosEnrique José Bolaños Geyer was the 82nd President of Nicaragua from 10 January 2002 to 10 January 2007. President Bolaños is of Spanish and German heritage and was born in Masaya ....
supported this measure, and signed the bill into law on 17 November 2006, as a result Nicaragua is one of three countries in the world where
abortionAn abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo. An abortion can occur spontaneously due to complications during pregnancy or can be induced, in humans and other species...
is
illegalLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
with no exceptions, along with
El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
and
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
.
Legislative and presidential electionsNicaragua held a general election on 5 November 2006. The country's voters went to the polls to elect a new President of the Republic and 90 members of the National Assembly, all of whom will serve five-year terms...
took place on November 5, 2006.
Daniel OrtegaJosé Daniel Ortega Saavedra is the current President of Nicaragua, having served since 10 January 2007. He previously served as the 79th President, between 10 January 1985 and 25 April 1990...
returned to the presidency with 37.99% of the vote. This percentage was enough to win the presidency outright, due to a change in electoral law which lowered the percentage requiring a runoff election from 45% to 35% (with a 5% margin of victory).
Politics
Politics of Nicaragua takes place in a framework of a
presidentialA presidential system is a system of government where an executive branch exists and presides separately from the legislature, to which it is not accountable and which cannot, in normal circumstances, dismiss it....
representative democraticElectoral democracies require a majority of the votes cast. Many representative democracies are constitutional republics in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".- Criticisms :...
republicA republic is a form of government in which the head of state is not a monarch and the people have an impact on its government. The word 'republic' is derived from the Latin phrase res publica which can be translated as "a public affair".Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their...
, whereby the
President of NicaraguaThe position of President of Nicaragua was created in the Constitution of 1854. From 1825 until the Constitution of 1838 the title of the position was known as Head of State and from 1838 to 1854 as Supreme Director .-Supreme Directors of Nicaragua :*José Núñez *Evaristo Rocha...
is both
head of stateHead of state is the generic term for the individual or collective office that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state...
and
head of governmentHead of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet. In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled Prime Minister, President of the Government, Premier, etc...
, and of a
multi-party systemA multi-party system is a system in which three or more political parties have the capacity to gain control of government separately or in coalition....
.
Executive power}}In the study of political science the executive branch of government has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the democratic idea of the separation of powers .In many...
is exercised by the government.
Legislative powerA legislature is a type of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law...
is vested in both the
governmentA government is the body within a community, political entity or organization which has the authority to make and enforce rules, laws and regulations.....
and the
National AssemblyThe National Assembly is the legislative branch of the government of Nicaragua.-Composition:The Nicaraguan legislature is a unicameral body....
. The
JudiciaryThe judiciary is the system of courts which interprets and applies the law in the name of the sovereign or state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Currently, Nicaragua's major political parties have been discussing the possibility of going from a presidential system to a parliamentary system. This way, there would be a clear differentiation between the head of government (Prime Minister) and the head of state (President).
Departments and municipalities
Nicaragua is a
unitaryA unitary state is a sovereign state governed as one single unit in which the central government is supreme and any administrative divisions exercise only powers that the central government chooses to delegate...
republicA republic is a form of government in which the head of state is not a monarch and the people have an impact on its government. The word 'republic' is derived from the Latin phrase res publica which can be translated as "a public affair".Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their...
. For administrative purposes it is divided into 15 departments (
departamentos) and two self-governing regions (autonomous communities) based on the Spanish model. The departments are then subdivided into 153 municipios (
municipalitiesA municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly denotes a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them. A municipality is typically governed by a mayor and a city council or municipal council.The notion of municipality...
). The two autonomous regions are 'Región Autónoma Atlántico Norte'
and 'Región Autónoma Atlántico Sur', often referred to as
RAAN and
RAAS, respectively; until they were granted autonomy in 1985 they formed the single department of Zelaya.
- Boaco (Boaco
Boaco is the capital city and municipality of the Boaco department of Nicaragua. The municipality of Boaco has a population of 56,900 and an area of 1,086.81 km² ....
)
- Carazo (Jinotepe
Jinotepe is a city in Nicaragua located in Department of Carazo in the South Pacific region of Nicaragua at the municipality of Jinotepe. It borders with Managua, Masaya, Granada, and Rivas.It is sister cities with Santa Cruz, California ....
)
- Chinandega (Chinandega
Chinandega is a town and the departmental seat of Chinandega department in Nicaragua. It is also the administrative centre of the surrounding municipality of the same name. The city has a population of 121,793 inhabitants with 151,000 in the municipality...
)
- Chontales (Juigalpa
Juigalpa is the capital city of the Chontales Department of Nicaragua. It is located within the municipality of Juigalpa, approximately 140 km east of Managua on Carretera Rama, in the central region of Nicaragua....
)
- Estelí (Estelí
Estelí, officially Villa de San Antonio de Pavia de Estelí is a city and municipality within the Estelí department. Is an active commercial center in the north and is known as "the diamond of segovias"...
)
- Granada (Granada
Granada, with an estimated population of 110,326 , is Nicaragua's fourth most populous city and capital of the Granada Department. Granada is historically one of Nicaragua's most important cities both economically and politically...
)
- Jinotega (Jinotega
Jinotega is the capital of Jinotega Department in the north central region of Nicaragua.-About:The capital city of the Department of Jinotega is the City of Jinotega. The Department of Jinotega produces 80% of the nation's coffee. It has a population of about 51,000 living inside a vast valley...
)
- León (León
León is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. It was founded by the Spaniards as Santiago de los Caballeros de León and rivals Granada, Nicaragua, in the number of historic Spanish colonial homes and churches...
)
- Madriz (Somoto
Somoto, meaning The Valley of Geese, is a town located in the hills of northern Nicaragua around 20 km south-west of Ocotal, and is in the municipality of Madriz. It was founded as a town in 1867, and since 1936 has been the capital of Madriz. Somoto is also home to the Somoto Canyon, a relatively...
)
|
- Managua (Managua
Managua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
)
- Masaya (Masaya
Masaya , called the City of Flowers, is the capital city of the Masaya department of Nicaragua. It is situated approximately 14 km north of Granada and 17 km south from Managua. The town of Masaya is situated just South of the Masaya Volcano , an active Volcano from which the city takes its name...
)
- Matagalpa (Matagalpa
Matagalpa is a city in Nicaragua, the capital of the department of Matagalpa. The city has a population of 109,100 , while the population of the department is more than 480,000...
)
- Nueva Segovia (Ocotal
Ocotal is the capital of the Nueva Segovia Department in Nicaragua, Central America.- Description:Located within the municipality of Ocotal. Ocotal is located 13 miles south of the Honduras border on the Pan-American Highway. The city, which holds a population of 31,932 , is located within a...
)
- Rivas (Rivas)
- Río San Juan (San Carlos
San Carlos is the capital city of the municipality of San Carlos and of the Río San Juan Department of Nicaragua. The city proper has a population of roughly 12,174, while the city and surrounding communities contain 37,461 as of 2005. San Carlos is positioned on the confluence of Lake Nicaragua...
)
- RAAN
Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte , sometimes shortened to RAAN, is one of two autonomous regions in Nicaragua. It covers an area of 32,159 km² and has a population of 249,700 . It is the largest autonomous region or department in Nicaragua...
(BilwiBilwi, with an approximate population of 60,000, is the main city of the municipality of Puerto Cabezas in the North Atlantic Coast department of Nicaragua....
)
- RAAS
Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur , sometimes shortened to RAAS, is one of two autonomous regions in Nicaragua. It covers an area of 27,407 km² and has a population of 382,100...
(BluefieldsBluefields is the capital of the municipality of the same name, and of Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur in Nicaragua. It was also capital of the former Zelaya Department, which was divided into North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions...
)
|
Geography
Nicaragua occupies a landmass of 129,494 km², comparable to that of Greece or New York state. Nearly one fifth of the territory is designated as protected areas like national parks, nature reserves, and biological reserves. The country is bordered by
HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
to the north, the
Caribbean SeaThe Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean situated in the tropics of the Western hemisphere, bounded to the south and west by the American landmass, with the North Atlantic Ocean proper to the northeast and the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest...
to the east,
Costa RicaCosta Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally...
to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.
Nicaragua has three distinct geographical regions: the Pacific Lowlands, the
Amerrique MountainsThe Amerrique Mountains are a small mountain range in the central spine of Nicaragua, the Cordillera Chontaleña, separating Lake Nicaragua from the Mosquito Coast...
(North-Central Highlands), and the
Mosquito CoastThe Caribbean Mosquito Coast historically consisted of an area along the Atlantic coast of present-day Nicaragua, named after its native Miskito Indians and long dominated by British interests...
(Atlantic Lowlands).
Pacific lowlands
Located in the west of the country, these lowlands consist of a broad, hot, fertile plain. Punctuating this plain are several large volcanoes of the
Cordillera Los MaribiosCordillera de Maribios is a mountain range in León and Chinandega departments, western Nicaragua, at and about 64.4 km long. It is a volcanic range comprised most notably by San Cristóbal 1745 m, Pilas 983 m, Telica 1060 m, Cerro Negro 450 m, and Momotombo 1258 m....
mountain range, including
MombachoMombacho is a stratovolcano in Nicaragua, near the city of Granada. It is 1344 metres high. The Mombacho Volcano Nature Reserve is one of 78 protected areas of Nicaragua. Mombacho is an active volcano but the last eruption occurred in 1570...
just outside Granada, and
MomotomboMomotombo is a stratovolcano in Nicaragua, not far from the city of León. It stands on the shores of Lago de Managua. An eruption of the volcano in 1610 forced inhabitants of an early Spanish settlement nearby to relocate...
near León. The lowland area runs from the
Gulf of FonsecaThe Gulf of Fonseca , part of the Pacific Ocean, is a gulf in Central America, bordering El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.-Physical geography:...
to Nicaragua's Pacific border with Costa Rica south of Lake Nicaragua.
Lake NicaraguaLake Nicaragua or Cocibolca or Granada is a vast freshwater lake in Nicaragua of tectonic origin. With an area of , it is the largest lake in Central America, the 21st largest lake in the world and only slightly smaller than Lake Titicaca...
is the largest freshwater lake in Central America (20th largest in the world), and is home to the world's only freshwater sharks (
Nicaraguan sharkThe bull shark, Carcharhinus leucas, also known as the whaler shark, Zambezi shark or unofficially known as Zambi in Africa and Nicaragua shark in Nicaragua, is a shark common worldwide in warm, shallow waters along coasts and in rivers. The bull shark is well known for its unpredictable, often...
). The Pacific lowlands region is the most populous, with over half of the nation's population. The capital city of
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
is the most populous and it is the only city with over 1.5 million inhabitants.
In addition to its beach and resort communities, the Pacific Lowlands is also the repository for much of Nicaragua's Spanish colonial heritage. Cities such as
LeónLeón is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. It was founded by the Spaniards as Santiago de los Caballeros de León and rivals Granada, Nicaragua, in the number of historic Spanish colonial homes and churches...
and
GranadaGranada, with an estimated population of 110,326 , is Nicaragua's fourth most populous city and capital of the Granada Department. Granada is historically one of Nicaragua's most important cities both economically and politically...
abound in colonial architecture and artifacts; Granada, founded in 1524, is the oldest colonial city in the
AmericasThe Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America...
.
North-Central Highlands
This is an upland region away from the Pacific coast, with a cooler climate than the Pacific Lowlands. About a quarter of the country's agriculture takes place in this region, with
coffeeCoffee is a brewed beverage prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called coffee beans, of the coffee plant. They are seeds of "coffee cherries" that grow on trees in over 70 countries. It has been said that green coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world behind crude oil. Due to its...
grown on the higher slopes.
OakAn oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 400 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
s,
pinePines are coniferous trees in the genus Pinus , in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Distribution:...
s,
mossMosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations. They do not have flowers or seeds, and their simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems...
,
fernA fern is any one of a group of about 20,000 species of plants classified in the phylum or division Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta. The group is also referred to as Polypodiophyta, or Polypodiopsida when treated as a subdivision of tracheophyta...
s and
orchidsOrchidaceae, the Orchid family, is the largest family of the flowering plants . Its name is derived from the genus Orchis....
are abundant in the
cloud forestA cloud forest, also called a fog forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical evergreen montane moist forest characterized by a high incidence of low-level cloud cover, usually at the canopy level. Cloud forests often exhibit an abundance of mosses covering the ground and vegetation, in which...
s of the region.
Bird life in the forests of the central region includes
Resplendent QuetzalThe Resplendent Quetzal, Pharomachrus mocinno, is a spectacular bird of the trogon family. It is found from southern Mexico to western Panama . There are two subspecies, P. m. mocinno and P. m. costaricensis, the Costa Rican Resplendent Quetzal...
,
goldfinchesThe Lesser Goldfinch or Dark-backed Goldfinch is a very small songbird of the Americas. Together with its relatives the American Goldfinch and Lawrence's Goldfinch, it forms the American goldfinches clade in the genus Carduelis sensu stricto.The American goldfinches can be distinguished by the...
,
hummingbirdHummingbirds are among the smallest of birds, and include the smallest extant bird species, the Bee Hummingbirds. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings 12-90 times per second . They can also fly backwards, and are the only group of birds able to do so. Their English name derives...
s,
jayThe jays are several species of medium-sized, usually colorful and noisy, passerine birds in the crow family Corvidae. The names jay and magpie are somewhat interchangeable, and the evolutionary relationships are rather complex...
s and
toucanetsThe Emerald Toucanet, Aulacorhynchus prasinus, is a near-passerine bird occurring in mountainous regions from Mexico, through Central America, to northern Venezuela and along the Andes as far south as central Bolivia...
.
Atlantic lowlands
This large
rainforestRainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1750–2000 mm . The monsoon trough, alternately known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating Earth's tropical rain forests.From 40 to 75%...
region is irrigated by several large rivers and very sparsely populated. The
Rio CocoThe Río Coco, formerly known as the Río Segovia, is a river in southern Honduras and northern Nicaragua. To the Miskito Indians that live along the river it is known as the Wanki or Wanks River...
is the largest river in Central America, it forms the border with Honduras. The Caribbean coastline is much more sinuous than its generally straight Pacific counterpart; lagoons and deltas make it very irregular.
Nicaragua's
Bosawás Biosphere ReserveThe Bosawás Biosphere Reserve in the northern part of Nicaragua is a hilly tropical forest designated in 1997 as a UNESCO biosphere reserve. At over 20,000 km² in size, the reserve comprises about 7% of the nation's total land area making it the second largest rainforest in the Western Hemisphere,...
is located in the Atlantic lowlands, it protects 1.8 million acres (7,300 km²) of Mosquitia forest - almost seven percent of the country's area - making it the largest rainforest north of the
AmazonThe Amazon rainforest , also known as Amazonia, or the Amazon jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...
in
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
.
Nicaragua's
tropicalThe tropics,the tropics are very hot. hi everyone! peace out!seated in the equatorial regions of the world, are limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately 23°26' N latitude and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at 23°26' S latitude...
east coast is very different from the rest of the country. The climate is predominantly tropical, with high temperature and high humidity. Around the area's principal city of
BluefieldsBluefields is the capital of the municipality of the same name, and of Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur in Nicaragua. It was also capital of the former Zelaya Department, which was divided into North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions...
, English is widely spoken along with the official Spanish. The population more closely resembles that found in many typical Caribbean ports than the rest of Nicaragua.
A great variety of birds can be observed including
eagleEagles are large birds of prey which are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa...
s,
turkeysA turkey is either of two living species of large birds in the genus Meleagris. One species, Meleagris gallopavo, commonly known as the Wild Turkey, is native to the forests of North America...
,
toucanToucans are a family, Ramphastidae, of near-passerine birds from the neotropics . The family is most closely related to the American barbets. They are brightly marked and have large, colorful bills. The family includes five genera and about forty different species...
s,
parakeetA parakeet is a term for any one of a large number of unrelated small to medium sized species of parrot, that generally have long tail feathers.- Species :...
s and
macawMacaws are small to large, often colourful New World parrots. Of the many different Psittacidae genera, six are classified as macaws: Ara, Anodorhynchus, Cyanopsitta, Primolius, Orthopsittaca, and Diopsittaca. Previously, the members of the genus Primolius were placed in Propyrrhura, but the...
s. Animal life in the area includes different species of
monkeyA monkey is any cercopithecoid or platyrrhine primate. All primates that are not prosimians or apes are monkeys. The 264 known extant monkey species represent two of the three groupings of simian primates...
s,
anteaterAnteaters are the four mammal species of the suborder Vermilingua commonly known for eating ants and termites. Together with the sloths, they compose the order Pilosa...
s, white-tailed
deerDeer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. They include for example Moose, Red Deer, Reindeer, Roe and Chital. Animals from related families within the order Artiodactyla are often also considered to be deer – these include muntjac and water deer...
and
tapirA tapir is a large browsing mammal, roughly pig-like in shape, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs, being the Brazilian tapir, the Malayan tapir, Baird's tapir and the...
s.
Wildlife and Biodiversity
RainforestRainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1750–2000 mm . The monsoon trough, alternately known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating Earth's tropical rain forests.From 40 to 75%...
in Nicaragua covers more than 20,000 km², particularly on the Atlantic lowlands. As well as the
Bosawás Biosphere ReserveThe Bosawás Biosphere Reserve in the northern part of Nicaragua is a hilly tropical forest designated in 1997 as a UNESCO biosphere reserve. At over 20,000 km² in size, the reserve comprises about 7% of the nation's total land area making it the second largest rainforest in the Western Hemisphere,...
(in the north) there is the
Indio Maíz Biological ReserveIndio Maíz Biological Reserve measures about 4,500 square kilometers and is situated on the southeastern corner of Nicaragua bordering the San Juan River. It is the second largest expanse of lowland rainforest reserve in Nicaragua and is referred to as "the gem of Central American nature reserves"...
(in the south), which protects 2,500 km² of the Atlantic Rainforest.
These two areas are very rich in biodiversity. There are 5 species of felines, including
jaguarThe Jaguar, Panthera onca, is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus. It is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest and most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere...
and cougar; 3 species of primates,
spider monkeySpider monkeys of the genus Ateles are New World monkeys in the subfamily Atelinae, family Atelidae. Like other atelines, they are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, from southern Mexico to Brazil...
,
howler monkeyHowler monkeys are among the largest of the New World monkeys. Nine species are currently recognised. Previously classified in the family Cebidae, they are now placed in the family Atelidae. These monkeys are native to South and Central American forests. They live in groups of usually about 18...
and
capuchin monkeyThe capuchins are the group of New World monkeys classified as genus Cebus. The range of the capuchin monkeys includes Central America and South America as far south as northern Argentina...
; 1 species of
tapirA tapir is a large browsing mammal, roughly pig-like in shape, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs, being the Brazilian tapir, the Malayan tapir, Baird's tapir and the...
, called
Danto by the Nicaraguans; 3 species of anteaters and many more.
Exports
Nicaragua is primarily an agricultural country; agriculture constitutes 60% of its total exports which annually yield approximately US $300 million. In addition, Nicaragua's
Flor de CañaFlor de Caña is a brand of rum distributed by Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua which is headquartered in Managua, Nicaragua.-History:...
rum is renowned as among the best in
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, and its tobacco and beef are also well regarded.
Nicaragua's agrarian economy has historically been based on the export of cash crops such as
bananaBanana is the common name for a herbaceous plants of the genus Musa, and the commonly eaten fruit it produces. They are native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics.Banana...
s,
coffeeCoffee is a brewed beverage prepared from roasted seeds, commonly called coffee beans, of the coffee plant. They are seeds of "coffee cherries" that grow on trees in over 70 countries. It has been said that green coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world behind crude oil. Due to its...
,
sugarSugar is a class of edible crystalline substances, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose. Human taste buds interpret its flavor as sweet. Sugar as a basic food carbohydrate primarily comes from sugar cane and from sugar beet, but also appears in fruit, honey, sorghum, sugar maple , and in many...
,
beefBeef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle . Beef is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of Australia, Europe and America, and is also important in Africa, East Asia, and Southeast Asia...
and
tobaccoTobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or...
.
Light industry (maquila), tourism, banking, mining, fisheries, and general commerce are expanding.
Nicaragua also depends heavily on remittances from Nicaraguans living abroad, which totaled $655.5 million in 2006.
Components of the economy
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in
purchasing power parityThe purchasing power parity theory uses the long-term equilibrium exchange rate of two currencies to equalize their purchasing power...
(PPP) in 2008 was estimated at $17.37 billion USD. The service sector is the largest component of GDP at 56.9%, followed by the industrial sector at 26.1% (2006 est.). Agriculture represents 17% of GDP, the highest percentage in
Central AmericaManagua
Guatemala City
San Salvador
San Pedro Sula
Panama City
San José, Costa Rica
Santa Ana, El Salvador
León
San Miguel|-|}...
(2008 est.). Remittances account for over 15% of the Nicaraguan GDP. Close to one billion dollars are sent to the country by Nicaraguans living abroad. Nicaraguan labor force is estimated at 2.322 million of which 29% is occupied in agriculture, 19% in the industry sector and 52% in the service sector (est. 2008).
Poverty
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the
AmericasThe Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America...
. According to the
CIA Fact BookThe World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. It was originally an annual book, but the 2008 edition was the last to be printed on paper by the CIA...
, inflation averaged 8.1% from 2000 through 2006. As of 2007, Nicaragua's inflation stands at 9.8%.
The World BankThe World Bank Group is a family of five international organizations that makes leveraged loans, generally to poor countries. The Bank came into formal existence on 27 December 1945 following international ratification of the Bretton Woods agreements, which emerged from the United Nations Monetary...
also indicates moderate economic growth at an average of 5% from 1995 through 2004. In 2005 the economy grew 4%, with overall GDP reaching $4.91 billion. In 2006, the economy expanded by 3.7% as GDP reached $5.3 billion. As of 2008, it stands at $6.5 billion.
According to the
PNUDThe United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. The UNDP is an executive board within the United Nations General Assembly...
, 48% of the population in Nicaragua live below the poverty line, 79.9% of the population live with less than $2 per day,
unemploymentUnemployment occurs when a person is available to work and seeking work but currently without work. The prevalence of unemployment is usually measured using the unemployment rate, which is defined as the percentage of those in the labor force who are unemployed...
is 3.9%, and another 46.5% are
underemployedIn economics, the term underemployment has three different distinct meanings and applications. All meanings involve a situation in which a person is working, unlike unemployment, where a person who is searching for work cannot find a job...
(2008 est.). As in many other
developing countriesDeveloping country is a term generally used to describe a nation with a low level of material well being. There is no single internationally-recognized definition of developed country, and the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries, with some developing...
, a large segment of the economically poor in Nicaragua are women. In addition, a relatively high proportion of Nicaragua's homes have a woman as head of household: 39% of
urbanAn urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
homes and 28% of rural homes. According to UN figures, 80% of the
indigenous peopleThe term indigenous peoples can be used to describe any ethnic group of people who inhabit a geographic region with which they have the earliest known historical connection, alongside more recent immigrants who have populated the region and may be greater in number...
(who make up 5% of the population) live on less than $1 per day. According to the FAO, 27% of all Nicaraguans are suffering from
undernourishment; the highest percentage in
Central AmericaManagua
Guatemala City
San Salvador
San Pedro Sula
Panama City
San José, Costa Rica
Santa Ana, El Salvador
León
San Miguel|-|}...
.
Infrastructure
During the war between the US-backed
ContrasThe Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua's FSLN Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government following the July 1979 overthrow of Anastasio Somoza Debayle...
and the elected government of the
SandinistasThe Sandinista National Liberation Front is a socialist political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish...
in the 1980s, much of the country's infrastructure was damaged or destroyed.
InflationIn economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation is also an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a loss of real...
averaged 30% throughout the 1980s. After the United States imposed a trade embargo in 1985, which lasted 5 years, Nicaragua's inflation rate rose dramatically. The 1985 annual rate of 220% tripled the following year and rose to more than 13,000% in 1988, the highest rate for any country in the
Western HemisphereThe Western Hemisphere, also Western hemisphere or western hemisphere, is a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian , the other half being the eastern hemisphere...
in that year.
The country is still a recovering economy and it continues to implement further reforms, on which aid from the
IMFThe International Monetary Fund is an international organization that oversees the global financial system by following the macroeconomic policies of its member countries, in particular those with an impact on exchange rates and the balance of payments...
is conditional. In 2005 finance ministers of the leading eight industrialized nations (
G8The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for governments of the six richest countries in the world: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1976, Canada joined the group...
) agreed to forgive some of Nicaragua's foreign debt, as part of the
HIPCHeavily Indebted Poor Countries are a group of 40 developing countries with high levels of poverty and debt overhang which are eligible for special assistance from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank....
program. According to the World Bank Nicaragua's
GDPThe gross domestic product or gross domestic income is a basic measure of a country's economic performance and is the market value of all final goods and services made within the borders of a country in a year...
was around $4.9 billion US dollars. Recently, in March 2007, Poland and Nicaragua signed an agreement to write off 30.6 million dollars which was borrowed by the Nicaraguan government in the 1980s.
Since the end of the war almost two decades ago, more than 350 state enterprises have been
privatizedPrivatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector...
.
Inflation reduced from 33,500% in 1988 to 9.45% in 2006, and the foreign debt was cut in half.
According to the
World BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides leveraged loans to poorer countries for capital programs, tied to neoliberal market restructurings...
, Nicaragua ranked as the 62nd best economy for starting a business making it the second best in Central America, after
PanamaPanama, officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of both Central America and, in turn, North America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the...
. Nicaragua's economy is "62.7% free" with high levels of fiscal, government, labor, investment, financial, and trade freedom. It ranks as the 61st
freest economyThe Index of Economic Freedom is a series of 10 economic measurements created by the Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal. Its stated objective is to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations.- History :...
, and 14th (out of 29) in the
AmericasThe Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America...
.
Coinage
During the era of the Spanish colonial rule-and for more than 50 years afterwards-Nicaragua used Spanish coins that were struck for use in the "New World". The first unique coins for Nicaragua were issued in 1878 in the peso denomination. The cordoba became Nicaragua's currency in 1912 and was initially equal in value to the U.S. dollar. The Nicaraguan unit of currency is the
CórdobaThe córdoba is the currency of Nicaragua. It is divided into 100 centavos.- History :The first córdoba was introduced on March 20, 1912. It replaced the peso at a rate of 12½ pesos = 1 córdoba & was initially equal to the US dollar...
(NIO) and was named after
Francisco Hernández de CórdobaFrancisco Hernández de Córdoba is usually reputed as the founder of Nicaragua, and in fact he founded two important Nicaraguan cities, Granada and León. The currency of Nicaragua is named the córdoba in his memory....
, its national founder. The front of each of Nicaragua's circulating coins features the national coat of arms. The five volcanoes represent the five Central American countries at the time of Nicaragua's independence, while the rainbow at the top symbolizes peace and the cap in the center is a symbol of freedom. The design is contained within a triangle to indicate equality. The back of each coin features the denomination, with the inscription "En Dios Confiamos" (In God We Trust).
Tourism
Tourism in Nicaragua is currently the second largest industry in the nation, over the last 7 years
tourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
has grown about 70% nationwide with rates of 10%-16% annually. Nicaragua has seen positive growth in the tourism sector over the last decade and is expected to become the first largest industry in 2007. The increase and growth led to the
incomeIncome is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
from tourism to rise more than 300% over a period of 10 years. The growth in tourism has also positively affected the agricultural, commercial, and finance industries, as well as the construction industry. Despite the positive growth throughout the last decade, Nicaragua remains the least visited nation in the region.
Every year about 60,000 U.S. citizens visit Nicaragua, primarily business people, tourists, and those visiting relatives. Some 5,300 people from the U.S. reside in the country now. The majority of tourists that visit Nicaragua are from the U.S.,
CentralManagua
Guatemala City
San Salvador
San Pedro Sula
Panama City
San José, Costa Rica
Santa Ana, El Salvador
León
San Miguel|-|}...
or South America, and Europe. According to the Ministry of Tourism of Nicaragua (INTUR), the colonial city of
GranadaGranada, with an estimated population of 110,326 , is Nicaragua's fourth most populous city and capital of the Granada Department. Granada is historically one of Nicaragua's most important cities both economically and politically...
is the preferred spot for tourists. Also, the cities of
LeónLeón is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. It was founded by the Spaniards as Santiago de los Caballeros de León and rivals Granada, Nicaragua, in the number of historic Spanish colonial homes and churches...
, Masaya, Rivas and the likes of
San Juan del SurSan Juan del Sur is a coastal town on the Pacific Ocean, in south-west Nicaragua. The town is a popular tourist location because of its many nearby and spectacular beaches. San Juan del Sur is popular among surfers and is a vacation spot for many Nicaraguan families and foreign tourists, who...
, San Juan River,
OmetepeOmetepe is an island formed by two volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua in the Republic of Nicaragua. Its name derives from the Nahuatl words ome and tepetl , meaning two mountains....
, Mombacho Volcano, the
Corn IslandsMap of the Corn Islands .pngThe Corn Islands are two islands about 70 km east off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, constituting one of 12 municipalities of the Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur department...
, and others are main tourist attractions. In addition,
ecotourismEcotourism is travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strives to be low impact and small scale. It helps educate the traveler; provides funds for conservation; directly benefits the economic development and political empowerment of local communities; and fosters respect for...
and
surfingSurfing is most commonly known, the term is used for a surface water sport in which the person surfing moves along the face of a breaking ocean wave . However, surfing is not restricted to saltwater, but can sometimes take place on rivers, using a standing wave...
attract many tourists to Nicaragua.
According to TV Noticias (news program) on
Canal 2Televicentro Canal 2 is a nationwide terrestrial television channel from Nicaragua owned by Televicentro de Nicaragua, S.A.- History :Televicentro de Nicaragua, S.A. was founded in December 1965 by Octavio Sacasa Sarria and the channel had its first broadcasting in March, 1966. It was the second...
, a Nicaragua television station, the main attractions in Nicaragua for tourists are the beaches, scenic routes, the architecture of cities such as León and Granada and most recently
ecotourismEcotourism is travel to fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas that strives to be low impact and small scale. It helps educate the traveler; provides funds for conservation; directly benefits the economic development and political empowerment of local communities; and fosters respect for...
and
agritourismAgritourism is a style of vacation that normally takes place on a farm or ranch. This may include the chance to help with farming and ranching tasks during the visit. Agritourism is considered to be a niche or uniquely adapted form of tourism and is often practiced in wine growing regions such as...
, particularly in Northern Nicaragua.
Population
According to the
CIA World FactbookThe World Factbook is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. It was originally an annual book, but the 2008 edition was the last to be printed on paper by the CIA...
, Nicaragua has a population of 5,570,129; comprising mainly 69%
mestizoMestizo is a Spanish and Portuguese term that was used in the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire to refer to Latin people of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry in the Americas....
, 17%
whiteWhite Latin Americans are the white population of Latin America. They are the descendants of 15th–to–19th century colonial-era settlers and of post-independence immigrants. Original settlers were mostly Spanish and Portuguese, but post-independence immigrants were more diverse, among them many...
, 9%
blackAn Afro-Latin American is a Latin American person of at least partial Black African ancestry; the term may also refer to historical or cultural elements in Latin America thought to emanate from this community...
and 5%
amerindianThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
; this fluctuates with changes in migration patterns. The population is 54% urban.
The most populous city in Nicaragua is the capital,
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
, with a population of 1.2 million (2005). As of 2005, over 4.4 million inhabitants live in the Pacific, Central and North regions, 2.7 in the Pacific region alone, while inhabitants in the Caribbean region reached an estimated 700,000.
There is a growing
expatriateAn expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence...
community the majority of whom move for business, investment or
retirementRetirement is the point where a person stops employment completely . A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours...
from United States, Canada, Europe,
TaiwanTaiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
, and other countries; the majority have settled in Managua,
GranadaGranada, with an estimated population of 110,326 , is Nicaragua's fourth most populous city and capital of the Granada Department. Granada is historically one of Nicaragua's most important cities both economically and politically...
and
San Juan del SurSan Juan del Sur is a coastal town on the Pacific Ocean, in south-west Nicaragua. The town is a popular tourist location because of its many nearby and spectacular beaches. San Juan del Sur is popular among surfers and is a vacation spot for many Nicaraguan families and foreign tourists, who...
.
Many
Nicaraguans live abroadThe 1980s were the backdrop to a savage civil war which saw conflict destroy the nation of Nicaragua, and the lives of 50,000+ civilians in the process. The multicultural country of Nicaragua experienced an excessive outpouring of citizens who fled the nation for their own security...
, particularly in Costa Rica and the United States.
Nicaragua has a
population growth ratePopulation growth is the change in population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals in a population using "per unit time" for measurement...
of 1.8% as of 2008. This is the result of one of the highest
birth rateCrude birth rate is the nativity or childbirths per 1,000 people per year.According to the United Nations' World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database, crude birth rate is the Number of births over a given period divided by the person-years lived by the population over that...
s in the
Western HemisphereThe Western Hemisphere, also Western hemisphere or western hemisphere, is a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian , the other half being the eastern hemisphere...
: 24.9X1,000 according to the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
for the period 2005-2010. The death rate is 4.1X1,000 during the same period according to the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
.
Ethnic groups
The majority of the Nicaraguan population, (86% or approximately 4.8 million people), is either Mestizo or White. 69% are
MestizoMestizo is a Spanish and Portuguese term that was used in the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire to refer to Latin people of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry in the Americas....
s (mixed
AmerindianThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
and
WhiteWhite people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
) and 17% are White with the majority being of
SpanishSpanish people or Spaniards constitute the nationality and ethnic group of natives of Spain, a European country in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. The Spanish nationality is in essence made up of regional nationalities, reflecting the complex history of Spain...
,
GermanThe German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship , distinguished from people of German ancestry...
, Italian, or
FrenchFrench people can refer to:* The legal residents and citizens of France, regardless of ancestry. For a legal discussion, see French nationality law.* People whose ancestors lived in France or the area that later became France....
ancestry. Mestizos and Whites mainly reside in the western region of the country.
About 9% of Nicaragua's population is black, or Afro-Nicaragüense, and mainly reside on the country's sparsely populated Caribbean or Atlantic coast. The black population is mostly composed of black English-speaking Creoles who are the descendents of escaped or shipwrecked slaves; many carry the name of Scottish settlers who brought slaves with them, such as Campbell, Gordon, Downs and Hodgeson. Although many Creoles supported Somoza because of his close association with the US, they rallied to the Sandinista cause in July 1979 only to reject the revolution soon afterwards in response to a new phase of 'mestizoisation' and imposition of central rule from Managua. Nicaragua has the largest
African diasporaThe African Diaspora was the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world - predominantly to the Americas, then later to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe....
population in Central America. There is also a smaller number of
GarifunaThe Garinagu are an ethnic group of mixed ancestry who live primarily in Central America. They live along the Caribbean Coast in Belize, Guatemala, St. Vincent, Nicaragua and Honduras including the mainland, and on the island of Roatán...
, a people of mixed West African,
CaribCarib, Island Carib or Kalinago people, after whom the Caribbean Sea was named, live in the Lesser Antilles islands. They are an Amerindian people whose origins lie in the southern West Indies and the northern coast of South America....
and
ArawakThe term Arawak , was used to designate some of the peoples encountered by the Spanish in the West Indies in 1492 and thereafter...
descent. In the mid-1980s, the government divided the department of Zelaya - consisting of the eastern half of the country - into two autonomous regions and granted the black and indigenous people of this region limited self-rule within the Republic.
The remaining 5% of Nicaraguans are
AmerindiansThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples...
, the unmixed descendants of the country's indigenous inhabitants. Nicaragua's
pre-ColumbianThe Pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the...
population consisted of many indigenous groups. In the western region the
NicaraoNicarao is the name of the then-leader and/or the capital city of the most populous indigenous tribe when the Spanish arrived in Nicaragua. Gil González Dávila, who first explored the area, came up with this Central American country's name by combining Nicarao and the Spanish word Agua, meaning...
people, after whom the country is named, were present along with other groups related by culture and language to the
MayansThe Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Preclassic period , many Maya cities reached their highest...
. The Caribbean coast of Nicaragua was inhabited by indigenous peoples who were mostly
chibchaChibcha, also known as Muisca or Mosca, is "officially" an extinct Chibchan language of Colombia, formerly spoken by the Muisca people. The language was banned by King Charles III of Spain on May 10, 1770, as part of a de-indigenization project and remained so until the constitution of 1991 was...
related groups that had migrated from South America, primarily present day
ColombiaColombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the northwest by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean...
and
VenezuelaVenezuela , officially titled Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It is a continental mainland with numerous islands located off its coastline in the Caribbean Sea...
. These groups include the
MiskitoThe Miskitos are a group of Native Americans in Central America. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Rio Grande, Nicaragua along the Mosquito Coast. There is a native Miskito language, but large groups speak Miskito creole English, Spanish, and other languages. The creole...
s, Ramas and Sumos. In the nineteenth century, there was a substantial
indigenousIn biogeography, a species is defined as indigenous or native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural resources, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...
minority, but this group was also largely assimilated culturally into the
mestizoMestizo is a Spanish and Portuguese term that was used in the Spanish Empire and Portuguese Empire to refer to Latin people of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry in the Americas....
majority.
Immigration
In the 1800s Nicaragua experienced several waves of immigration, primarily from Europe. In particular, families from Germany, Italy, Spain, France and Belgium immigrated to Nicaragua, particularly the departments in the Central and Pacific region. As a result, the Northern cities of
EstelíEstelí, officially Villa de San Antonio de Pavia de Estelí is a city and municipality within the Estelí department. Is an active commercial center in the north and is known as "the diamond of segovias"...
,
JinotegaJinotega is the capital of Jinotega Department in the north central region of Nicaragua.-About:The capital city of the Department of Jinotega is the City of Jinotega. The Department of Jinotega produces 80% of the nation's coffee. It has a population of about 51,000 living inside a vast valley...
and
MatagalpaMatagalpa is a city in Nicaragua, the capital of the department of Matagalpa. The city has a population of 109,100 , while the population of the department is more than 480,000...
have significant communities of fourth generation
GermansThe German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship , distinguished from people of German ancestry...
. They established many agricultural businesses such as coffee and sugar cane plantations, newspapers, hotels and banks.
Also present is a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of
SyriansThis article is about the demographic features of the population of Syria, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
,
ArmeniansThe Armenians are a nation and ethnic group which originated in the Caucasus and the Armenian Highland. It is estimated that there are 8 million Armenians around the world. There is a large concentration of Armenians in the Caucasus, especially in Armenia, and there is a significant presence in...
,
Palestinian NicaraguanPalestinian Nicaraguan are Nicaraguans of Palestinian ancestry who were born in or have immigrated to Nicaragua...
s,
Jewish NicaraguansJewish Nicaraguans or Nicaraguan Jews are Nicaraguans of Jewish ancestry who were born in or have immigrated to Nicaragua. They are part of the ethnic Jewish diaspora.-History:...
, and
LebaneseLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
people in Nicaragua with a total population of about 30,000. There is also an
East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms. Geographically and geo-politically, it covers about , or about 28 percent of the Asian continent, about 15 percent bigger than the area of Europe, though some categorize Tibet, Xinjiang,...
n community mostly consisting of
ChineseHan Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98 percent of the population of the Republic of China , 75 percent of the...
,
TaiwanTaiwan , also known as Formosa , is the largest island of the Republic of China in East Asia. Taiwan is located east of the Taiwan Strait, off the southeastern coast of mainland China...
ese, and Japanese. The
Chinese NicaraguanChinese Nicaraguans are Nicaraguans of Chinese ancestry who immigrated to or born in Nicaragua...
population is estimated at around 12,000. The Chinese arrived in the late 1800s but were unsubstantiated until the 1920s.
Relative to its overall population, Nicaragua has never experienced any large scale wave of
immigrantsImmigration is the arrival of new individuals into a habitat or population. It is a biological concept and is important in population ecology, differentiated from emigration and migration.-As a political term:...
. The total number of immigrants to Nicaragua, both originating from other
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries and all other countries, never surpassed 1% of its total population prior to 1995. The 2005 census showed the foreign-born population at 1.2%, having risen a mere .06% in 10 years.
Diaspora
The Civil War forced many Nicaraguans to start lives outside of their country. Although many Nicaraguans returned after the end of the war, many people emigrated during the 1990s and the 2000s due the unemployment and the poverty. The majority of the
Nicaraguan DiasporaThe 1980s were the backdrop to a savage civil war which saw conflict destroy the nation of Nicaragua, and the lives of 50,000+ civilians in the process. The multicultural country of Nicaragua experienced an excessive outpouring of citizens who fled the nation for their own security...
is in
Costa RicaCosta Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally...
and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and today one in six Nicaraguans live in these two countries. It's difficult to estimate the number of Nicaraguans living abroad because many of them are living in host countries illegally. The table shows current statistics for certain countries:
| Country |
Count |
Costa Rica Costa RicaCosta Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east.Costa Rica, which translates literally as "Rich Coast", constitutionally...
|
236,000-750,000 |
USA United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
|
300,000 |
Mexico MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
|
2,522 |
Honduras HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
|
23,000 |
El Salvador El SalvadorEl Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It borders the Pacific Ocean between Guatemala and Honduras. It lies on the Gulf of Fonseca, as does Nicaragua further south. It has a population of approximately 5.7 million people as of 2009 on...
|
100,000 |
| Nicaraguans living abroad |
At least 1,000,000 |
Culture
Nicaraguan cultureNicaraguan culture has several distinct strands. The west of the country was colonized by Spain and has a similar culture to other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. The eastern half of the country, on the other hand, was once a British protectorate and their culture is similar to that of...
has strong folklore, music and religious traditions, deeply influenced by
European cultureThe culture of Europe might better be described as a series of overlapping cultures. Whether it is a question of West as opposed to East; Christianity as opposed to Islam; many have claimed to identify cultural fault lines across the continent. There are many cultural innovations and movements,...
but enriched with Amerindian sounds and flavors. Nicaraguan culture can further be defined in several distinct strands. The Pacific coast has strong folklore, music and religious traditions, deeply influenced by
EuropeansThe Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and a very small area of France. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas—the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas...
. It was colonized by Spain and has a similar culture to other Spanish-speaking
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries. The Caribbean coast of the country, on the other hand, was once a British
protectorateA protectorate, in international law, is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity. In exchange for this, the protectorate usually accepts specified obligations, which may vary greatly, depending on the real nature of...
. English is still predominant in this region and spoken domestically along with Spanish and
indigenous languagesThe official language of Nicaragua is Spanish; however, Nicaraguans on the Caribbean coast speak indigenous languages and also English. The communities located on the Caribbean coast also have access to education in their native languages.-Languages:...
. Its culture is similar to that of
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
nations that were or are British possessions, such as
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length and as much as in width, amounting to 11,100 km
2. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harboring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
,
BelizeBelize , is a country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, composed of many cultures and speaking many languages. Although Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language...
, The
Cayman IslandsThe Cayman Islands are a British overseas territory located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
, etc. The indigenous groups that were present in the Pacific coast have largely been assimilated into the mestizo culture, however, the indigenous people of the Caribbean coast have maintained a distinct identity.
Nicaraguan musicMusic of Nicaragua is a mixture of indigenous and European, especially Spanish, influences. Musical instruments include the marimba and others that are common across Central America...
is a mixture of indigenous and European, especially Spanish, influences. Musical instruments include the
marimbaThe marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. Keys or bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones...
and others common across Central America. The marimba of Nicaragua is uniquely played by a sitting performer holding the instrument on his knees. He is usually accompanied by a bass
fiddleThe term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, including the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
,
guitarThe guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that adapts readily to a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six strings, but four-, seven-, eight-, ten-, eleven-, twelve-, thirteen- and eighteen-string guitars also exist. The size and shape of the neck and the base of the guitar...
and guitarrilla (a small guitar like a
mandolinA mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It is descended from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family...
). This music is played at social functions as a sort of background music. The marimba is made with hardwood plates, placed over bamboo or metal tubes of varying lengths. It is played with two or four
hammerA hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
s. The
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
coast of Nicaragua is known for a lively, sensual form of
dance musicThis article is about dance music in general. You may also be looking for electronic dance music or dance-pop.Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
called
Palo de MayoPalo de Mayo is a type of Afro-Caribbean dance with sensual movements that forms part of the culture of several communities in the RAAS region in Nicaragua, as well as Belize, and the Bay Islands of Honduras. It is also the name given to the month long May Day festival celebrated on the Caribbean...
which is very much alive all throughout the country. It is especially loud and celebrated during the Palo de Mayo festival in May The
GarifunaThe Garinagu are an ethnic group of mixed ancestry who live primarily in Central America. They live along the Caribbean Coast in Belize, Guatemala, St. Vincent, Nicaragua and Honduras including the mainland, and on the island of Roatán...
community exists in Nicaragua and is known for its popular music called Punta.
Literature of NicaraguaThe Literature of Nicaragua can be traced to pre-Columbian times with the myths and oral literature that formed the cosmogonic view of the world that indigenous people had. Some of these stories are still known in Nicaragua. Like many Latin American countries, the Spanish conquerors have had the...
can be traced to
pre-ColumbianThe Pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the...
times with the myths and
oral literatureOral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do...
that formed the cosmogonic view of the world that indigenous people had. Some of these stories are still known in Nicaragua. Like many
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries, the Spanish conquerors have had the most effect on both the culture and the literature. Nicaraguan literature has historically been an important source of
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
in the Spanish-speaking world, with internationally renowned contributors such as
Rubén DaríoFélix Rubéen García Sarmiento also known as Rubén Darío was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated Spanish-American literary movement known as Modernismo , flourishing at the end of the 19th century. Dario has had the greatest and most lasting influence into twentieth century Spanish literature, and...
who is regarded as the most important literary figure in Nicaragua, referred to as the
"Father of Modernism" for leading the
modernismoModernismo is Spanish and Portuguese for modernism, however the term Modernismo also indicates a more specific art movement:* Modernismo refers to a Spanish-American literary movement, best exemplified by Rubén Darío...
literary movement at the end of the 19th century. Other literary figures include
Ernesto CardenalReverend Father Ernesto Cardenal Martínez is a Nicaraguan Catholic priest and was one of the most famous liberation theologians of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, a party he has since left. From 1979 to 1987 he served as Nicaragua's first culture minister. He is also famous as a poet, and he still...
,
Gioconda BelliGioconda Belli is an author, novelist and renowned Nicaraguan poet. She was designated among the 100 most important poets during the 20th century-Early life:...
,
Claribel AlegríaClara Isabel Alegría Vides is a Nicaraguan poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central America. She writes under the pseudonym Claribel Alegría.-Early life:...
and
José Coronel UrtechoJosé Coronel Urtecho was a Nicaraguan poet, translator, essayist, critic, narrator, playwright, diplomat and historian. He has been described as "the most influential Nicaraguan thinker of the twentieth century"...
, among others.
El GüegüenseEl Güegüense is a satirical drama and was the first literary work of post-Columbian Nicaragua. It is regarded as one of Latin America's most distinctive colonial-era expressions and as Nicaragua's signature folkloric masterpiece combining music, dance and theater...
is a
satiricalSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
and was the first literary work of post-Columbian Nicaragua. It is regarded as one of Latin America's most distinctive colonial-era expressions and as Nicaragua's signature folkloric masterpiece combining music, dance and theater. The
theatricalTheatre is a branch of the performing arts. While any performance may be considered theatre, as a performing art, it focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance qualifies as dramatic by creating a representational illusion...
play was written by an anonymous author in the 16th century, making it one of the oldest indigenous theatrical/dance works of the
Western HemisphereThe Western Hemisphere, also Western hemisphere or western hemisphere, is a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian , the other half being the eastern hemisphere...
. The story was published in a book in 1942 after many centuries.
Language
Central American SpanishCentral American Spanish is the general name of the Spanish language dialects spoken in Central America...
is spoken by about 90% of the country's population. In Nicaragua, the
voseoIn Spanish, voseo is the use of the second person singular pronoun vos instead of tú. It can also be used in the context of using verb conjugation of vos with tú as the subject pronoun, as in the case of Chilean Spanish....
form of Spanish is dominant in both speech and publications. Nicaragua is one out of two Central American nations that uses voseo spanish as its written and spoken form. The same Spanish form is also seen in
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
,
UruguayUruguay , is a country located in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.46 million people, of whom 1.1 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88–94% of the population are of mostly European and/or mixed descent.Uruguay's only land border is...
,
HondurasHonduras is a republic in Central America. It was formerly known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras...
, and coastal
ColombiaColombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the northwest by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean...
. The language and pronunciation varies depending on region. Some Nicaraguans pronounce the word
vos with a strong
s sound at the end. In the central part of the country, regions like
BoacoBoaco is the capital city and municipality of the Boaco department of Nicaragua. The municipality of Boaco has a population of 56,900 and an area of 1,086.81 km² ....
prounce
vos without the
s sound at the end. The result is
vo, similar to
vouz in
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
and
voi in
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
.
In the Caribbean coast, many Afro-Nicaraguans and creoles speak English and
creole EnglishAn English-based creole language is a creole language that was significantly influenced by the English language...
as their first language , but as second language they speak a very fluent Spanish. The language in the North and South Atlantic Regions are influenced by
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
,
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
,
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
, Spaniard and
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
roots. In addition, inhabitants of the Caribbean coast, many of the indigenous people speak their native languages, such as the
MiskitoMiskito is a Misumalpan language spoken by the Miskito people in northeastern Nicaragua, especially in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, and in eastern Honduras....
,
SumoSumo is the collective name for a group of Misumalpan languages spoken in Nicaragua and Honduras. Hale & Salamanca classifies the Sumu languages into a northern composed of the Twahka and Panamahka dialects and southern Sumu consisting of the Ulwa language...
,
RamaRama is one of the indigenous languages of the Chibchan family spoken by the Rama people on the island of Rama Cay and south of lake Bluefields on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Other indigenous languages of this region include Miskito and Sumu . Rama is one of the northernmost languages of the...
and
Garifuna languageGarifuna is an Arawakan language spoken in Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize by the Garifuna people. Historically it was referred to as Carib or Black Carib and Igñeri by Europeans. One interesting feature of Garifuna is a vocabulary split between terms used only by men and terms used only by women...
. In addition, many
ethnic groupAn ethnic group is a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed.Ethnic identity is further marked by the researcher Seng Yang in the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common cultural,...
s in Nicaragua have maintained their ancestral languages, while also speaking Spanish or English; these include Chinese,
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
, German, and Italian.
Spanish is taught as the principal language. English is taught to students during their high school years and tends to be the national second language. Other languages, particularly
romance languagesThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
, can also be found sporadically.
Nicaragua was home to 3
extinct languageAn extinct language is a language which no longer has any speakers. Extinct languages may be contrasted with dead languages: no longer spoken as a main language.-Language loss:...
s, one of which was never classified.
Nicaraguan Sign LanguageNicaraguan Sign Language is a signed language spontaneously developed by deaf children in a number of schools in western Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s...
is also of particular interest to
linguistsLinguistics is the scientific study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of meaning...
.
Religion
| Religious Affiliation in Nicaragua |
}
}}
|-
! style="background:#efefef;" align=center | Religion
! style="background:#efefef;" align=center | Percentage
|-
|Roman Catholic
|align=right|58.5%
|-
|
EvangelicalEvangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s.Most adherents consider its key characteristics to be: a belief in the need for personal conversion ; some expression of the gospel in effort; a high regard for biblical authority; and an emphasis on the...
|align=right|21.6%
|-
|Moravian
|align=right|1.6%
|-
|
Jehovah's WitnessesJehovah's Witnesses is a restorationist, millenarian Christian denomination. The religion reports worldwide membership of over 7 million adherents involved in evangelism; they report convention attendance of over 12 million, and annual Memorial attendance of over 17 million...
|align=right|0.9%
|-
|
NoneNothing is a concept that describes the absence of anything at all. Colloquially, the concept is often used to indicate the lack of anything relevant or significant, or to describe a particularly unimportant thing, event, or object. It is contrasted with something and everything...
|align=right|15.7%
|-
|
OtherThe Other or constitutive other is a key concept in continental philosophy, opposed to the Same. It refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is 'other' than the concept being considered. The term often means a person other than oneself, and is often capitalised...
1
|align=right|1.6%
|-
|colspan=2 style="background:#efefef;" align=left|
1 Includes BuddhismBuddhism, as traditionally conceived, is a path of salvation attained through insight into the ultimate nature of reality. It encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha...
, IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
, and JudaismJudaism is a set of beliefs and practices originating in the Hebrew Bible , as later further explored and explained in the Talmud and other texts...
among other religions.
|-
|colspan=2 style="background:#e9e9e9;" align=center|Source: 2005 Nicaraguan Census
|-
|}Religion is a significant part of the culture of Nicaragua and is referred to in the
constitutionThe Constitution of Nicaragua was reformed due to a negotiation of the executive and legislative branches in 1995. The reform of the 1987 Sandinista Constitution gave extensive new powers and independence to the National Assembly, including permitting the Assembly to override a presidential veto...
. Religious freedom, which has been guaranteed since 1939 and religious tolerance are promoted by both the Nicaraguan government and the constitution.
Nicaragua has no official religion. However, Catholic
BishopA bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s are expected to lend their authority to important state occasions, and their pronouncements on national issues are closely followed. They can also be called upon to mediate between contending parties at moments of political crisis.
The largest denomination, and traditionally the religion of the majority, is Roman Catholic. However, the numbers of practicing Roman Catholics have been declining, while members of
evangelicalEvangelism is the practice of attempting to convert people to a religion. The term is used most often in reference to Christianity's religions, since they mandate that their followers make efforts to recruit as many people as possible into their faith...
ProtestantProtestantism is a branch within Christianity, containing many denominations with some differing practices and doctrines, that principally originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the major divisions within Christianity, together with the Roman...
groups and Mormons have been rapidly growing in numbers since the 1990s. There are also strong
AnglicanAnglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures...
and Moravian communities on the Caribbean coast.
Roman Catholicism came to Nicaragua in the sixteenth century with the Spanish conquest and remained, until 1939, the established faith.
ProtestantismProtestantism is a branch within Christianity, containing many denominations with some differing practices and doctrines, that principally originated in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. It is considered to be one of the major divisions within Christianity, together with the Roman...
and other
Christian denominationA Christian denomination is an identifiable religious body under a common name, structure, and doctrine within Christianity.Worldwide, Christians are divided, often along ethnic and linguistic lines, into separate churches and traditions. Technically, divisions between one group and another are...
s came to Nicaragua during the nineteenth century, but only gained large followings in the Caribbean Coast during the twentieth century.
Popular religion revolves around the saints, who are perceived as intercessors (but not mediators) between human beings and God. Most localities, from the capital of
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
to small rural communities, honor
patron saintA patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, or person. Patron saints, because they have already transcended to the metaphysical, are able to intercede effectively for the needs of their special charges...
s, selected from the Roman Catholic calendar, with annual
fiestas. In many communities, a rich lore has grown up around the celebrations of patron saints, such as Managua's Saint Dominic (Santo Domingo), honored in August with two colorful, often riotous, day-long processions through the city. The high point of Nicaragua's religious calendar for the masses is neither
ChristmasChristmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days. The nativity of Jesus, which is the basis for the anno Domini...
nor
EasterEaster is the most important annual religious feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to Christian scripture, Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day from his crucifixion...
, but La Purísima, a week of festivities in early December dedicated to the
Immaculate ConceptionThe Immaculate Conception is, according to Roman Catholic Dogma, the conception of the Virgin Mary without any stain of original sin. Under this aspect Mary is sometimes called the Immaculata , particularly in artistic contexts...
, during which elaborate altars to the
Virgin MaryMary , usually referred to by Christians as the Virgin Mary or Saint Mary, was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee, identified in the New Testament as the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Muslims also refer to her as the Virgin Mary or Syeda Mariam which means Our Lady Mary...
are constructed in homes and workplaces.
Cuisine
The Cuisine of Nicaragua is a mixture of criollo food and dishes of pre-Columbian origin. The
SpaniardsSpanish people or Spaniards constitute the nationality and ethnic group of natives of Spain, a European country in the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. The Spanish nationality is in essence made up of regional nationalities, reflecting the complex history of Spain...
found that the
Creole peopleThe term Creole and its cognates in other languages — such as crioulo, criollo, créole, kriolu, criol, kreyol, kriulo, kriol, krio, kreol, etc. — have been applied to people in different countries and epochs, with rather different meanings...
had incorporated local foods available in the area into their
cuisineCuisine is a specific set of cooking traditions and practices, often associated with a specific culture. It is often named after the region or place where its underlining culture is present...
. Traditional cuisine changes from the Pacific to the Caribbean coast; while the Pacific coast's main staple revolves around local fruits and corn, the Caribbean coast cuisine makes use of
seafoodSeafood is any sea animal or plant that is served as food and eaten by humans. Seafoods include seawater animals, such as fish and shellfish...
and the
coconutThe Coconut Palm is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only species in the genus Cocos, and is a large palm, growing to 30 m tall, with pinnate leaves 4–6 m long, pinnae 60–90 cm long; old leaves break away cleanly leaving the trunk smooth. The term coconut refers to the seed of the...
.
As in many other
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n countries,
cornMaize , is a herbaceous plant domesticated in Mesoamerica and subsequently spread throughout the American continents...
is a main staple. Corn is used in many of the widely consumed dishes, such as the
nacatamalA nacatamal is a Nicaraguan tamal. They are much larger than the tamales typical of Mexico, and are popular in all of Central America. In Honduras, nacatamales are eaten during special occasions like Christmas and weddings. Nicaraguans eat nacatamales typically on Sunday morning with coffee,...
, and
indio viejoIndio Viejo is a dish whose name means "old Indian" and is made with small long strings of meat or chicken.-Origin:This dish originated in Nicaragua but is also enjoyed in Costa Rica and other parts of Latin America....
. Corn is also an ingredient for drinks such as
pinolilloPinolillo is a sweet cornmeal and cacao-based traditional drink in Nicaragua. It is made of ground toasted corn and a bit of cacao. It can be mixed with water or milk, served sweetened or unsweetened. If unsweetened, it is rather bitter. It can also be used in cooking some local dishes, such as...
and
chichaChicha a peruvian drink used in some regions of Latin America for several varieties of fermented beverages, particularly those derived from maize, but which also describes similar non-alcoholic beverages...
as well as sweets and desserts. In addition to corn, rice and beans are eaten very often.
Gallo pintoGallo pinto is the prototypical traditional dish of Nicaragua and Costa Rica cuisines. It is considered the national dish of both countries, although the two prepare it in a different manner, and is eaten as a part of any meal...
, Nicaragua's
national dishA national dish is a dish, food or a drink that represents a particular country, nation or region. It is usually something that is naturally made or popular in that country.-Overview:...
, is made with white rice and red beans that are cooked separately and then fried together. The dish has several variations including the addition of
coconut oilCoconut oil is extracted from the kernel or meat of matured coconut harvested from the coconut palm . Throughout the tropical world it has provided the primary source of fat in the diets of millions of people for generations. It has various applications in food, medicine, and industry...
and/or grated
coconutThe Coconut Palm is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only species in the genus Cocos, and is a large palm, growing to 30 m tall, with pinnate leaves 4–6 m long, pinnae 60–90 cm long; old leaves break away cleanly leaving the trunk smooth. The term coconut refers to the seed of the...
on the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands , and the surrounding coasts...
coast. Most Nicaraguans begin their day with Gallopinto.
Many of Nicaragua's dishes include indigenous fruits and vegetables such as
jocoteJocote is a species of flowering plant in the family Anacardiaceae, native to tropical regions of the Americas. Other common names include Red Mombin, Purple Mombin,or Hog Plum. The name "jocote" derives from the Nahuatl word xocotl . It is a small to medium-sized tree up to 25 m tall...
,
mangoMangoes belong to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous species of tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is indigenous to the Indian Subcontinent...
,
papayaThe papaya is the fruit of the plant Carica papaya, in the genus Carica. It is native to the tropics of the Americas, and was cultivated in Mexico several centuries before the emergence of the Mesoamerican classic cultures...
,
tamarindThe Tamarind is a tree in the family Fabaceae. The genus Tamarindus is monotypic .- Origin :...
o, pipian,
bananaBanana is the common name for a herbaceous plants of the genus Musa, and the commonly eaten fruit it produces. They are native to the tropical region of Southeast Asia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. Today, they are cultivated throughout the tropics.Banana...
,
avocadoThe avocado , also known as palta or aguacate , butter pear or alligator pear, is a tree native to the Caribbean, Mexico, South America and Central America, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...
,
yucaCassava is a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America that is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...
, and herbs such as
cilantroCoriander is an annual herb in the family Apiaceae. It is also known as Chinese parsley or, particularly in the Americas, cilantro. Coriander is native to southern Europe and North Africa to southwestern Asia. It is a soft, hairless plant growing to 50 cm [20 in.] tall...
,
oreganoOregano or is a species of Origanum, of the mint family, native to Europe, the Mediterranean region and southern and central Asia. It is a perennial herb, growing from 20-80 cm tall, with opposite leaves 1-4 cm long...
and achiote.
Nicaraguans also eat guinea pigs and tapirs, iguanas and turtle eggs.
Sports
BaseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond...
is the most popular sport played in Nicaragua. Although some professional Nicaraguan baseball teams have folded in the recent past, Nicaragua enjoys a strong tradition of American-style Baseball. Baseball was introduced to Nicaragua at different years during the 19th century. In the Caribbean coast locals from
BluefieldsBluefields is the capital of the municipality of the same name, and of Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur in Nicaragua. It was also capital of the former Zelaya Department, which was divided into North and South Atlantic Autonomous Regions...
were taught how to play baseball in 1888 by Albert Addlesberg, a retailer from the United States. Baseball did not catch on in the Pacific coast until 1891 when a group of mostly students originating from universities of the United States formed "La Sociedad de Recreo" (Society of Recreation) where they played various sports, baseball being the most popular among them. There are five teams that compete amongst themselves: Indios del Boer (Managua), Chinandega, Tiburones (Sharks) of Granada, Leon and Masaya. Players from these teams comprise the National team when Nicaragua competes internationally. The country has had its share of
MLBMajor League Baseball is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. Specifically, Major League Baseball refers to the organization that operates the National League and the American League, by means of a joint organizational structure that has developed gradually between...
players (including current Los Angeles Dodgers Pitcher
Vicente PadillaVicente de la Cruz Padilla is a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Padilla previously pitched for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Philadelphia Phillies, and Texas Rangers....
and
Boston Red SoxThe Boston Red Sox are a member of the Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Since , the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park. The "Red Sox" name originates from the iconic uniform feature....
pitcher
Devern HansackDevern Brandon Hansack is a Nicaraguan pitcher who is currently a free agent. He bats and throws right-handed.-Professional career:...
), but the most notable is
Dennis MartínezJosé Dennis Martínez Ortiz , better known as Dennis Martínez, was the first Nicaraguan baseball player to play in Major League Baseball...
, who was the first baseball player from Nicaragua to play in
Major League BaseballMajor League Baseball is the highest level of play in North American professional baseball. Specifically, Major League Baseball refers to the organization that operates the National League and the American League, by means of a joint organizational structure that has developed gradually between...
. He became the first Latin-born pitcher to throw a
perfect gameA perfect game is defined by Major League Baseball as a game in which a pitcher pitches a victory that lasts a minimum of nine innings and in which no opposing player reaches base. Thus, the pitcher cannot allow any hits, walks, hit batsmen, or any opposing player to reach base safely for any...
, in his 13th in major league history, for the Montreal Expos against the
DodgersThe Los Angeles Dodgers are a Major League Baseball team based in Los Angeles, California, USA. The team is in the Western Division of the National League. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming the Brooklyn...
at Dodger Stadium in 1991.
BoxingBoxing is a combat sport where two participants, generally of similar weight, fight each other with their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee and is typically engaged in during a series of one to three-minute intervals called rounds. There are three ways to win...
is the second most popular sport in Nicaragua. The country has had world champions such as
Alexis ArgüelloAlexis Argüello , also known by the stage name The Explosive Thin Man, was a Nicaraguan professional boxer and politician. As a boxer he was a three-time world champion. After his retirement from boxing, Argüello became active in Nicaraguan politics and in November 2008 he was elected mayor of...
and
Ricardo MayorgaRicardo Mayorga , is a Nicaraguan professional boxer. He is the former WBA/WBC Welterweight champion and the former WBC Junior Middleweight champion. He holds a fair record of 29-7 with 23 knockouts and 1 draw. He was featured for the first time on the cover of Ring Magazine on the December 2003...
among others. Recently, soccer has gained popularity, especially with the younger population. The Dennis Martínez National Stadium has served as a venue for both baseball and soccer but the first ever national soccer stadium in
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
is currently under construction.
Education
Education is paid via taxes for all Nicaraguans. Elementary education is free and compulsory, however, many children in rural areas are unable to attend due to lack of schools and other reasons. Communities located on the Caribbean coast have access to education in their native languages.
The majority of higher education institutions are located in
ManaguaManagua is the capital city of Nicaragua as well as the department and municipality by the same name. It is also the largest city in Nicaragua. It is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Managua. The city was declared the national capital in 1852. Previously, the capital had alternated...
, higher education has financial, organic and administrative autonomy, according to the law. Also, freedom of subjects is recognized. Nicaragua's higher education system consists of 48
universitiesA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, and 113
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
s and technical institutes in the areas of
electronicsElectronics is a branch of science and technology that deals with the controlled flow of electrons. The ability to control electron flow is usually applied to information handling or device control. Electronics is distinct from electrical science and technology, which deals with the generation,...
,
computer systemsA computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions.Although mechanical examples of computers have existed through much of recorded human history, the first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century . These were the size of a large room, consuming as...
and
sciencesComputer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems. It is frequently described as the systematic study of algorithmic processes that create, describe and transform...
,
agroforestryAgroforestry is an integrated approach of using the interactive benefits from combining trees and shrubs with crops and/or livestock.It combines agricultural and forestry technologies to create more diverse, productive, profitable, healthy and sustainable land-use systems.-Definitions:"Agroforestry...
,
constructionIn the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of multitasking...
and
tradeTrade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both. Trade is also called commerce or transaction. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Later one side of the barter were the metals, precious...
-related services. The educational system includes 1 U.S. accredited English-language university, 3
Bilingual university programsBilingual education involves teaching most subjects in school through two different languages - in the United States, instruction occurs in English and languages such as Spanish or Chinese, with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model. The following are several...
, 5 Bilingual secondary schools and dozens of
English Language InstituteThe purpose of an English Language Institute, or ELI, is to teach English as a second language to students from around the world. These institutes are often included in the college of education at American universities. Quality and methods vary a lot from one institute to the other, although some...
s. In 2005, almost 400,000 (7%) of Nicaraguans held a
university degreeA degree is any of a wide range of status levels conferred by institutions of higher education, such as universities, normally as the result of successfully completing a program of study.- History :...
. 18% of Nicaragua's total budget is invested in primary, secondary and higher education. University level institutions account for 6% of 18%.
As of 1979, the educational system was one of the poorest in
Latin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. Under the Somoza dictatorships, limited spending on education and generalized poverty, which forced many adolescents into the labor market, constricted educational opportunities for Nicaraguans. One of the first acts of the newly elected Sandinista government in 1980 was an extensive and successful literacy campaign, using secondary school students, university students and teachers as volunteer teachers: it reduced the overall
illiteracyLiteracy is a concept claimed and defined by a range of different theoretical fields. In everyday terms, "literacy" is typically described as the ability to read and write...
rate from 50.3% to 12.9% within only five months. This was one of a number of large scale programs which received international recognition for their gains in
literacyLiteracy is a concept claimed and defined by a range of different theoretical fields. In everyday terms, "literacy" is typically described as the ability to read and write...
,
health careHealth care , is the treatment and management of illness, and the preservation of health through services offered by the medical, dental, complementary and alternative medicine, pharmaceutical, clinical laboratory sciences , nursing, and allied health professions...
,
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
,
childcareChildcare, child care, or babycare is the act of caring for and supervising children from 0-16 years of age....
,
unionsA trade union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas, such as working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labor contracts with employers...
, and
land reformLand reforms is an often-controversial alteration in the societal arrangements whereby government administers possession and use of land...
. In September 1980,
UNESCOThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on 16 November 1945...
awarded Nicaragua the “Nadezhda Krupskaya” award for the literacy campaign. This was followed by the literacy campaigns of 1982, 1986, 1987, 1995 and 2000, all of which were also awarded by UNESCO.
See also
- Index of Nicaragua-related articles
Further reading
- Asleson, Vern. (2004) Nicaragua: Those Passed By. Galde Press ISBN 1-931942-16-1
External links
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