Nicaragua

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Nicaraguan :: Nicaragua :: Nicaraguan_Civil_Wars :: Nicaraguan_Sign_Language

Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua (). The country's name is a portmanteau of Nicarao, the name of the Nahuatl-speaking tribe which inhabited the shores of Lake Nicaragua before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and the Spanish word , meaning water, due to the presence of the large lakes 'Lake Nicaragua" and Lake Managua in the region.

At the time of the Spanish conquest, Nicaragua was the name given to the narrow strip of land between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. Chief Nicarao ruled over that land when the first conquerors arrived. The term was eventually applied, by extension, to the group that inhabited that region: the Nicaraos or Niquiranos.

The pre-Columbian Nicarao came to the area from northern regions after the fall of Teotihuacán, on the advice of their priests or religious leaders. According to tradition, they were to travel south until they encountered a lake with two volcanoes rising out of the waters, and stopped when they reached Ometepe, the largest fresh-water volcanic island in the world.

History

In 1524, Conquistador Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded the first Spanish permanent settlements, including two of Nicaragua's principal towns: Granada on Lake Nicaragua and Leon east of Lake Managua. Settled as a colony of Spain within the kingdom of Guatemala in the 1520s, Nicaragua became a part of the Mexican Empire and then gained its independence as a part of the United Provinces of Central America in 1821 and as an independent republic in its own right in 1838. The Mosquito Coast based on Bluefields on the Atlantic was claimed by the United Kingdom and its predecessors as a protectorate from 1655 to 1850; this was delegated to Honduras in 1859 and transferred to Nicaragua in 1860, though remained autonomous until 1894.

Much of Nicaragua's early politics following independence was characterized by the rivalry between the liberal élite of León and the conservative élite of Granada. This rivalry sometimes spilled into civil war. Initially invited by the Liberals in 1855 to join their struggle against the conservatives, a United States adventurer named William Walker won the liberal's war so easily that he saw the chance to take over the country. Walker named himself president in 1856 and offered the United States a new slave state. Fearing the possibility of his plans for expansion, several Central American countries united to drive him out of Nicaragua in 1857, and he was executed in neighbouring Honduras in 1861. A period of three decades of conservative rule ensued.

Taking advantage of divisions within the conservative ranks, José Santos Zelaya led a liberal revolt that brought him to power in 1893. Zelaya ended the longstanding dispute with the United Kingdom over the Atlantic Coast in 1894, and reincorporated the Mosquito Coast into Nicaragua.

Nicaragua offered assistance during World War 2, and was the first country in the world to ratify the UN Charter.

Politics

Politics of Nicaragua takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Nicaragua is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. Nicaragua's current president is Enrique Bolaños Geyer.

Listen to Nicaragua's National Anthem!

Geography

At approximately 129,500 square kilometers (50,000 sq mi)—roughly the size of the state of New York, Nicaragua contains 7% of the world's biodiversity and the second largest rainforest in the Americas. Close to 20% of the country's territory is protected as national parks or biological reserves. The country is bordered by Costa Rica on the south and Honduras on the north, with the Caribbean Sea to the east.

Nicaragua has three distinct geographical regions: the Pacific Lowlands, the North-Central Mountains and the Atlantic Lowlands. Nicaragua is administratively divided into 15 departments and two autonomous regions. The departments are subdivided into municipalities (municipios).

The departments include: Boaco, Carazo, Chinandega, Chontales, Estelí, Granada, Jinotega, León, Madriz, Managua, Masaya, Matagalpa, Nueva Segovia, Rivas, Río San Juan. The two autonomous regions are Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte and Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur, often referred to as RAAN and RAAS, respectively. Until they were granted autonomy in 1985 they formed the single department of Zelaya.

The 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 Maribios mountain range, including Mombacho just outside Granada, and Momotombo near to León. The lowland area runs from the Gulf of Fonseca to Nicaragua's Pacific border with Costa Rica south of Lake Nicaragua. This region is the most populous. About 27% of the nation's population lives in and around Managua, the capital city, on the southern shores of Lake Managua.

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 Granada and León abound in colonial architecture and artifacts.

The Central Region

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 coffee grown on the higher slopes. Oaks, pines, moss, ferns and orchids are abundant in the cloud forests of the region.

Bird life in the forests of the central region includes the Resplendent Quetzal, goldfinches, hummingbirds, jays and toucanets.

The Atlantic Lowlands

This large rainforest region, with several large rivers running through it, is very sparsely populated and is the second-largest rainforest in the Americas after the Amazon in Brazil. The Río Coco 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 tropical 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 Bluefields, English is widely spoken along with the official Spanish and 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 eagles, turkeys, toucans, parakeets and macaws. Animal life in the area includes several different species of monkeys, ant-eaters, white-tailed deer and tapirs.

Economy

Nicaragua's economy has historically been based on the export of cash crops such as bananas, coffee and tobacco. Nicaragua's rum is renowned as among the best in Latin America, and its tobacco and beef are also well regarded. During the Contra War in the early 1980's, much of the country's infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, and inflation ran for a time at several thousand per cent. Since the end of the war almost two decades ago, many state-owned industries have been privatized. Inflation has been brought to manageable levels, and the economy has grown quite rapidly in recent years.

As in many other developing countries, a large segment of the economically poor in Nicaragua are women. In addition, a relatively high percentage of Nicaragua's average homes have a woman as head of household: 39% of urban homes and 28% of the rural ones.

The country is still a recovering economy and it continues to implement further reforms, on which aid from the IMF is conditional. In 2005, finance ministers of the leading eight industrialized nations (G-8) agreed to forgive Nicaragua's foreign debt, as part of the HIPC program.

The Nicaraguan unit of currency is the Córdoba (NIO) and was named after Francisco Hernández de Córdoba its national founder.

Demographics

According to the 2005 census, Nicaragua has a population of 5,483,400, an increase of 20% on the 1995 census figure of 4,357,099.

Nicaraguans of European or mixed European and indigenous stock (mestizos) make up a combined 86% of the population, with about 69% being mestizos and 17% being of European descent (mostly Spanish, German, Italian and French).

In the nineteenth century, there had been a substantial indigenous minority, but this group was also largely assimilated culturally into the Hispanic mainstream. Primarily in the 19th century, Nicaragua saw several waves of immigration from other European nations. In particular the northern cities of Esteli and Matagalpa have significant 4th generation German communities. Most of the Mestizo and European descent population live in the western regions of the country as in the cities of Managua, Granada and Leon.

About 9% of Nicaragua's population is black, or afronicaragüense, and mainly resides in the country's sparsely populated eastern or Atlantic coast. The black population is mostly of West Indian (Antillean) origin, the descendants of indentured labourers brought mostly from Jamaica and Haiti when the region was a British protectorate. Nicaragua has the second largest black population in Central America after Panama. There is also a smaller number of Garifuna, a people of mixed Carib, Angolan, Congolese and Arawak descent.

The remaining 5% is comprised of the unmixed descendants of the country's indigenous inhabitants. Nicaragua's pre-Colombian population consisted of the Nahuatl-speaking Nicarao people of the west after whom the country is named, and six other ethnic groups including the Miskitos, Ramas and Sumos along the Caribbean coast. While very few pure-blooded Nicarao people still exist, the Caribbean peoples have remained distinct. 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 African and indigenous people of this region limited self-rule within the Republic.

There is also a small Middle Eastern-Nicaraguan community of Syrian, Armenian, Palestinian and Lebanese people in Nicaragua with a total population of about 30,000, and an East Asian community of Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese people of almost 8,000. These minorities speak Spanish while maintaining their ancestral languages as well.

Spanish is spoken by about 90% of the country's population; Nicaraguans speak standard Iberoamerican Spanish with some similarities to Galician Spanish—structurally similar to Argentinian Spanish which uses "vos" instead of "tu" along with the "vos" conjugation, but with a different intonation. The black population of the east coast region has English as its first language. Several indigenous peoples of the east still use their original languages.

See:

Central American Spanish

Roman Catholicism is the major religion, but evangelical Protestant groups have grown recently, and there are strong Anglican and Moravian communities on the Caribbean coast.

90% of Nicaraguans live in the Pacific lowlands and the adjacent interior highlands. The population is 54% urban. An estimated 2 million Nicaraguans live outside of Nicaragua.

Culture

The population of Nicaragua is very young with approx. 40% under 18 years of age. The country has strong folklore, music and religious traditions, largely founded on European (Iberian Peninsula) culture but enriched with Amerindian sounds and flavours. Nicaragua has historically been an important source of poetry in the Hispanic world, with internationally renowned contributors such as Rubén Darío.

Education is free for all Nicaraguans. Elementary education is free and compulsory, and communities located on the Atlantic Coast have access to education in their native language. Higher education has financial, organic and administrative autonomy, according to the law. Also, freedom of subjects is recognized.

Nicaraguan culture can further be defined in several distinct strands. The west of the country was colonized by Spain and its people are mostly Mestizos and European in composition; Spanish is invariably their first language.

The eastern half of the country, on the other hand, was once a British protectorate. English is still predominant in this region and spoken domestically along with Spanish which is formally taught in schools. Its culture is somewhat similar to Caribbean nations, although recent immigration by mestizos has largely influenced younger generations and an increasing number of people are either bilingual at home or speak Spanish only. There is a large population of people of mixed African descent, as well as a smaller Garifuna population.

Of the cultures that were present before European colonization, the Nahuatl-speaking peoples who populated the west of the country have essentially been assimilated into the latino culture. In the east, however, several indigenous groups have maintained a distinct identity. The Sumos and Ramas people still use their original languages.

Miscellaneous topics

References

Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin. The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books, September 20, 2005.
Matilde Zimmermann. Sandinista, Duke Universtiy Press, 2000.
The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth addition, Ed. Peter N. Stearns, 2001. p. 954

External links

MasatepeCity Leading the way to Masatepe by the power of Technology! (Spanish)
ProNicaragua Nicaragua Investment Promotion Agency, Energy, Tourism, profit (English & Español)
Intur Nicaragua's Official Tourism Site (English & Español)
Encyclopaedia Britannica's Nicaragua's country page
Government of Nicaragua - National Development Plan (Spanish)
Managua International Airport
Confidencial: Weekly News (Spanish)
The Pangea Partnership eco-building workshops in Nicaragua
Experience Nicaragua sustainable tourism guide to Nicaragua.
Nicaraguan Art Art and literature by Nicaraguans
Atelier Yoyita Art Gallery
Country profile: Nicaragua (BBC)
El Observador Económico
Marcaacme Art, Literature & Cultural Events in Nicaragua.(span)
NicaLiving.com A mostly English-language site about living in Nicaragua
ViaNica.com Extensive Nicaragua travel website

Central American countries | Nicaragua | Geographic portmanteaus | Spanish speaking countries

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