48 Fun Facts About Ecuador

Which bird spreads its wings on top of Ecuador's national coat of arms?

An Andean condor crowns the arms with wings outspread, and the whole crest sits at the centre of the official flag, which is how Ecuador's banner is told apart from Colombia's.

Which two countries share a land border with Ecuador?

Colombia and Peru are Ecuador's only land neighbours, which makes Ecuador and Chile the only two South American countries that do not touch Brazil.

What currency has Ecuador used since 2000?

The US dollar replaced Ecuador's collapsing currency in 2000, a move so unpopular that Jamil Mahuad, the president who announced it, was toppled in a coup shortly afterwards.

Ecuador's former currency, in use from 1884 to 2000, was named after which independence hero?

Antonio José de Sucre led the patriot army that won the 1822 battle freeing the Ecuadorian highlands from Spain; the currency named after him lasted from 1884 until it was replaced in 2000.

Which Galápagos seabird is the only member of its family that cannot fly?

The cormorant of the Galápagos evolved with no predators to flee and food close inshore, so its wings shrank to about a third of the size it would need to fly, and it hunts by diving instead.

The Galápagos Islands take their name from the Spanish word for which animal?

Giant tortoise: galápago is an old Spanish word for tortoise, and the first Spaniard to land there, a bishop whose ship drifted off course in 1535, marvelled at the thousands of huge ones he found.

Which naturalist visited the Galápagos in 1835 and noticed mockingbirds differed by island?

Charles Darwin labelled his mockingbirds by island; back in London, the bird expert John Gould told him that specimens he had taken for blackbirds and grosbeaks were all finches of one new group.

Ecuador's Antonio Valencia spent ten years, the last as captain, with which English football club?

Manchester United signed Valencia from Wigan in 2009; he won two Premier League titles there, moved from the wing to right-back and wore the captain's armband in his final season.

Which unusual bird lives in the Galápagos, the only one of its kind found in the Northern Hemisphere?

The northern tip of Isabela Island crosses zero latitude, so a few Galápagos penguins technically live north of the line. Cold currents make it possible.

Which Ecuadorian mountain's summit is the farthest point on Earth's surface from the planet's centre?

Chimborazo's summit is Ecuador's highest point, and because Earth bulges around its middle the peak stands about 2 km farther from the planet's centre than the top of Everest.

Which climber, the first man up the Matterhorn, made the first ascent of Ecuador's highest peak in 1880?

Edward Whymper reached the top on 4 January 1880 and, to silence doubters, climbed it again by another route later that year; Humboldt had turned back short of the summit in 1802.

Cotopaxi, about 50 km south of Quito, is notable as one of the world's highest what?

Cotopaxi is one of the world's highest active volcanoes, and its ice cap makes it deadly: an eruption in 1877 melted it and sent mudflows more than 100 km, as far as the Pacific.

Quito, at about 2,850 m, ranks second among the world's highest capital cities behind which one?

La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government, sits well above 3,000 m; Bolivia's constitutional capital is a different, lower city, so on that count Quito is the highest official capital on Earth.

Quito's old town joined UNESCO's very first World Heritage list in 1978 alongside which Polish city's historic centre?

Kraków came through the Second World War with far less damage than other cities in the region, so its medieval centre was still intact when UNESCO drew up its first list of twelve sites in 1978.

Which farmed seafood, raised in ponds along the coast near Guayaquil, is now one of Ecuador's biggest exports?

Shrimp farming has become a mainstay of the economy around Guayaquil, and in 2020 Ecuador overtook its Asian rivals to become the world's largest exporter.

Which two liberators met behind closed doors in Guayaquil in July 1822?

Bolívar and San Martín met in private and kept no record of the talks; Bolívar favoured republics and San Martín constitutional monarchies, and soon afterwards San Martín resigned his command and in time left for Europe.

The battle that secured Quito's independence on 24 May 1822 was fought on the slopes of which volcano?

Pichincha towers directly over Quito, and the patriot victory high on its slopes let the rebels march into the city the very next day, ending Spanish rule there.

Ecuador became a separate republic in 1830 when which short-lived union of liberated states broke apart?

Gran Colombia, Simón Bolívar's union of today's Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama, fell apart in 1830; the new southern state took its name from the equator that crosses it.

On Ecuador's flag, which colour takes up half the height?

Yellow fills the top half, twice the height of the blue and red bands, a layout taken from the liberation tricolour of Francisco de Miranda that Colombia's flag also keeps.

Ecuador is the world's largest exporter of which fruit?

Bananas have been Ecuador's signature crop since the early 1950s, and in the late 2010s the country shipped about a third of all the bananas traded across the world's borders.

Which US president's 1906 visit to the Panama Canal works popularised the Panama hat?

Theodore Roosevelt was photographed wearing a Panama hat while inspecting the canal works in November 1906; the hats were woven in Ecuador from toquilla straw and shipped through Panama.

The finest Panama hats are named after which Ecuadorian town where they are woven?

Montecristi gives its name to the finest grade, the superfino: one hat can take months to weave, and by popular lore the best will hold water and roll up small enough to pass through a wedding ring.

Which Ecuadorian city was founded in 1557 on the ruins of the Inca city of Tomebamba?

Cuenca rose in 1557 over the ruins of Tomebamba, the northern seat of the emperor Huayna Capac; the Inca city had been largely destroyed in the empire's own civil war before the Spanish arrived.

Ecuador's mainland is divided into three regions: the Costa, the Sierra and which rainforest region?

Oriente means 'east': the region is the forested lowland on the far side of the Andes, while the Costa is the Pacific plain and the Sierra the highlands between the two.

Ecuador's Orellana province is named for the conquistador who in 1542 completed the first European descent of which river?

The Amazon is said to owe its name to that voyage: Orellana told of fighting tribes led by women, who brought to mind the Amazons of Greek myth.

A single hectare of Ecuador's Yasuní National Park holds more than how many insect species?

A hectare of Yasuní is projected to hold at least 100,000 insect species, about as many as live in the whole of North America, the highest estimate for any patch of land on Earth.

In an August 2023 referendum, Ecuadorians voted to stop what activity inside Yasuní National Park?

Voters chose to halt oil drilling in Yasuní's Block 43, obliging Petroecuador to dismantle its wells; a plan to leave the oil underground in return for foreign payments had been abandoned in 2013 when little money arrived.

Ecuador's 2008 constitution was the first in the world to do what?

Ecuador's 2008 constitution was the first to grant legal rights to nature, so rivers, forests and ecosystems can be defended in court in their own name; Ecuador is one of 17 megadiverse countries.

Which animal, roasted whole and known as cuy, is a traditional delicacy in Ecuador's highlands?

Guinea pig, or cuy, was domesticated in the Andes for its meat thousands of years before Europeans began keeping the animals as pets, and it is still roasted for festivals.

Encebollado, a common hangover cure in Ecuador, is what kind of dish?

A tuna soup: encebollado means 'cooked with onions', after the pickled red onion heaped on the fish and cassava broth, and restaurants that specialise in it start serving early in the morning.

Atahualpa, the last effective Inca emperor, was captured in 1532 by which conquistador?

Francisco Pizarro seized Atahualpa at Cajamarca in November 1532; the Inca offered a room filled once with gold and twice with silver as ransom and was garrotted anyway in 1533.

Ingapirca, the largest Inca ruins in Ecuador, is famous for an elliptical building dedicated to what?

The Sun temple, an ellipse built around a great rock, crowns a hilltop the Cañari people held first; the Inca struggled to conquer them and ended up sharing the site.

The town of Otavalo in northern Ecuador is famous for a huge Saturday market selling what?

Woven textiles are the trade of the indigenous Otavalo people, whose ponchos, blankets and carpets fill the Plaza de los Ponchos all week and spill through the streets every Saturday.

How did engineers get Ecuador's Guayaquil–Quito railway up the sheer rock face called the Devil's Nose?

Zigzag switchbacks carry the track up the Nariz del Diablo near Alausí: the train runs forward past a junction, then backs up the next leg, and so climbs the cliff in a series of reversals.

Ecuador reached its first World Cup in 2002 by finishing above which eventual champions in South American qualifying?

Brazil went on to win the 2002 World Cup, yet in qualifying the future champions finished a point behind Ecuador, who took second place and a first ticket to the finals.

Which Ecuadorian scored both goals in the 2–0 win over Qatar that opened the 2022 World Cup?

Enner Valencia scored both, a penalty and a header, after Ecuador had already seen a goal chalked off in the opening minutes; he left that tournament with six World Cup goals, an Ecuadorian record.

Ecuador's first Olympic medal, a gold at Atlanta 1996, came in which event?

Jefferson Pérez won the 20 km race walk aged 22, the youngest Olympic walking champion to that date, then gave thanks by covering 459 km on foot from Quito to his home town.

Richard Carapaz became the first Ecuadorian to win a cycling Grand Tour when he took which race in 2019?

Richard Carapaz, once a schoolboy runner, won the 2019 Giro d'Italia ahead of the favourites Vincenzo Nibali and Primož Roglič, then took Olympic road race gold in Tokyo two years later.

Which fugitive spent almost seven years inside Ecuador's London embassy before his 2019 arrest?

Julian Assange entered the embassy in June 2012 and was granted asylum that August; on 11 April 2019 Ecuador withdrew it and invited British police in to arrest him.

Along with Shuar, which indigenous language does Ecuador's constitution name as official for intercultural relations?

Kichwa is Ecuador's form of Quechua, the language the Inca empire carried along the Andes; the same article of the 2008 constitution keeps Spanish as the one official language of the state.

Ecuador's first president, Juan José Flores, had been born in which country?

Juan José Flores was born in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, in 1800 and came to Ecuador as an officer in the independence wars; he was deposed in the March Revolution of 1845.

The 1998 Brasilia Presidential Act ended Ecuador's territorial dispute with which neighbour?

Peru kept the disputed ground under the 1998 Brasilia Presidential Act, but Ecuador was granted a single square kilometre at Tiwinza, inside its neighbour, as private property for commemorations.

Which delicate product, grown on farms high in the Andes and rushed abroad by air, is among Ecuador's leading exports?

Cut flowers thrive in Ecuador's cool, bright highlands, where growers can choose the altitude that suits each crop and harvest all year round for markets a flight away.

Which president governed Ecuador for three consecutive terms from 2007 to 2017?

Rafael Correa governed from 2007 to 2017 and backed his former vice-president Lenín Moreno to succeed him; in 2020 a court tried him in his absence for bribery and sentenced him to eight years.

Who won Ecuador's early presidential election in October 2023?

Daniel Noboa, 35, beat Luisa González in the run-off with about 52% of the vote; the election came early because President Lasso dissolved the legislature while facing impeachment, and Noboa won a full term in 2025.

Which international organisation has Ecuador joined twice and left twice, most recently walking out in January 2020?

OPEC admitted Ecuador in 1973; it left in 1992, unwilling to pay the membership fee or keep to its production quota, came back in 2007 and quit again in 2020.

Nacional is Ecuador's prized fine-aroma variety of which crop?

Cocoa from Ecuador's native Nacional trees is graded 'fine flavour', and the crop began there: cacao was first domesticated in what is now Ecuador more than 5,000 years ago, before it ever reached Mexico.

Ecuadorian ceviche, a coastal staple, is often served with which snack on the side?

Popcorn comes on the side of Ecuadorian ceviche, often with fried plantain as well, whereas Mexico serves the same dish with corn tostadas and Colombia with saltine crackers.