Ecuador

The northern Andes were home to the Quitu, Cañari, and other peoples before the Inca conquered the region in the late fifteenth century and made Quito a second capital of their empire. Spanish forces arrived in 1534, founding Quito on Inca foundations, and the territory became the Audiencia of Quito under the Viceroyalty of Peru and later New Granada.

Independence came with the wider Spanish American revolutions: a victory on the slopes of Pichincha above Quito in 1822 freed the territory, which joined Simón Bolívar's Gran Colombia and then, when that broke up in 1830, became the separate Republic of Ecuador.

The next 170 years were unstable — many constitutions, frequent coups, a long border war with Peru that flared as recently as 1995, and repeated economic crises. The worst, in 1999–2000, wiped out the banking system and led Ecuador to abandon its currency for the US dollar. The 2007–2017 presidency of Rafael Correa brought a decade of oil-funded spending and a new constitution; since then politics has fragmented and, from 2021, a severe wave of organised-crime violence has become the country's dominant issue.

Ecuador has one of the largest Indigenous populations, as a share, in South America, concentrated in the highlands and the Amazon. Kichwa communities keep their language, dress, markets, and communal work traditions (minga), and the Otavalo people are famous weavers and traders. The coast has a strong Afro-Ecuadorian culture, especially in Esmeraldas, with marimba music on UNESCO's list.

Catholicism, layered over Andean belief, shapes the calendar — Holy Week, Corpus Christi, and the Inti Raymi solstice festivals in the highlands, the Diablada de Píllaro, and Quito's founding celebrations in December. The devil-masked "Diablo Huma" and the burning of monigote effigies at New Year are widely practised.

Regional identity is pronounced: highland serranos and coastal costeños (or monos) tease each other over accent, temperament, and food, and Guayaquil and Quito have a long civic rivalry.

Guayaquil, the hot Pacific port, is the largest city and commercial centre; Quito, high in a narrow Andean valley at about 2,850 metres, is the capital and has one of the best-preserved colonial cores in the Americas. Cuenca, a smaller highland city, has drawn a large community of North American retirees.

The economy runs on oil, exported from the Amazon, plus bananas (Ecuador is the world's top exporter), shrimp, flowers, cacao, and remittances from Ecuadorians in Spain, Italy, and the US. The dollar has kept inflation low but left the country without monetary tools of its own.

Daily life follows the almuerzo set lunch, the neighbourhood market, and the bus; in the highlands it is tied to the farming year and the fiestas, on the coast to fishing and the heat.

Ecuadorian cooking varies by altitude. On the coast, ceviche (often shrimp, "cooked" in citrus and served with popcorn and plantain chips), encebollado (a tuna-and-cassava soup eaten as a hangover cure), and encocado (seafood in coconut) dominate. The highlands lean on potatoes, corn, and pork: hornado (whole roast pig), fritada, llapingachos (cheesy potato cakes), locro de papa soup, and mote hominy.

Cuy — roast guinea pig — is a special-occasion highland dish, and fanesca, a rich soup of a dozen grains and salt cod, is eaten at Easter. Street snacks include empanadas de viento, humitas, and bolón (fried green-plantain balls).

Ecuador grows some of the world's finest cacao, and drinking chocolate is a local pleasure. Canelazo, a hot cinnamon-and-sugarcane-spirit drink, warms highland nights, and fresh fruit juices are everywhere.

Quito's old town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the highland starting point, with its gilded churches, plazas, and the TelefériQo cable car up Pichincha; nearby, the Mitad del Mundo monuments mark the Equator. The "Avenue of the Volcanoes" runs south past Cotopaxi's near-perfect cone, the emerald Quilotoa crater lake, the market town of Otavalo, and the adventure-sports hub of Baños.

Cuenca and the southern highlands add colonial architecture, the Inca ruins of Ingapirca, and Cajas National Park's lake-studded páramo. From the eastern slopes, lodges on the Napo and other rivers open into the Amazon, with canopy towers, clay licks, and Indigenous-run reserves such as Kapawi and Sani.

The Galápagos Islands, 1,000 kilometres out in the Pacific, are the country's world-famous draw — a living laboratory of evolution where giant tortoises, marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, sea lions, and penguins show little fear of people, visited by cruise boat or by island-hopping under strict national-park rules. The Pacific coast itself offers surf at Montañita, humpback whales off Puerto López, and the dry forest and Machalilla National Park.