Ecuador holds 17.8 million people across 256,370 square kilometers, making it the smallest Andean nation by area but among the densest by population. The 2010 census recorded 71.9 percent of citizens identifying as mestizo, 7.4 percent Montubio, 7.2 percent Afro-Ecuadorian, 7 percent indigenous, and 6.1 percent white. These proportions shift dramatically by region. The Sierra highlands contain the majority of indigenous communities, particularly Kichwa speakers who constitute roughly 90 percent of Ecuador's indigenous population. Otavaleños concentrated around Otavalo in Imbabura Province number approximately 65,000 and maintain distinctive dress and market traditions dating to pre-colonial times. The Salasacas of Tungurahua Province, numbering around 12,000, retain purple and black traditional clothing and occupy lands near Ambato. The Saraguro people of Loja Province, estimated at 30,000, wear black wool clothing and wide-brimmed hats, a practice some scholars link to mourning the death of Atahualpa in 1533, though this interpretation remains disputed.
The Amazon region east of the Andes, comprising roughly half of Ecuador's territory but hosting only 5 percent of its population, shelters distinct indigenous groups with separate linguistic families. The Shuar and Achuar, related Jivaroan-speaking peoples, together number approximately 110,000 across Morona-Santiago and Pastaza provinces. The Huaorani, numbering around 4,000, inhabit territories overlapping Yasuní National Park and maintain some of the most recent contact with outside society, with certain clans remaining voluntarily isolated until the 1980s. The Kichwa of the Amazon, distinct from their highland relatives, number approximately 80,000 and occupy lands along the Napo and Pastaza rivers. Spanish missionary activity from the 1500s through the 1900s created shared Kichwa as a lingua franca among originally separate groups. The Tsáchila, numbering around 3,000, live west of Quito in Santo Domingo province and paint their hair red with achiote paste, a practice maintained by elders.
The coastal lowlands developed a distinct demographic character shaped by plantation agriculture and port commerce. Afro-Ecuadorians descended from enslaved people brought to coastal regions during Spanish colonial rule constitute majorities in Esmeraldas Province, where they represent approximately 43 percent of the population per 2010 census data. The community of San Lorenzo near the Colombian border maintains distinct musical traditions including marimba styles recognized by UNESCO in 2015 as intangible cultural heritage. The Montubio population, officially recognized as a distinct ethnic category in the 2008 constitution, represents rural mestizo campesinos of the coastal plains who developed separate cultural practices from highland mestizos. They concentrate in Guayas, Los Ríos, and Manabí provinces, where rodeo traditions and specific agricultural techniques distinguish their communities. Guayaquil, with 2.7 million people in its metropolitan area per 2020 census projections, contains the country's largest urban population and serves as Ecuador's economic center despite Quito's capital status.
Quito holds 2.8 million people in its metropolitan district per 2020 data and sits at 2,850 meters elevation in an Andean valley running north-south. The Spanish established the city on December 6, 1534, on the ruins of an earlier Inca settlement. Francisco Pizarro dispatched Sebastián de Benalcázar from Peru to claim the northern Inca territories, but upon arrival Benalcázar found the Inca general Rumiñahui had burned Quito to prevent Spanish acquisition of its structures and wealth. The Spanish rebuilt on the same site due to its strategic highland position. By 1563, the Spanish crown established the Real Audiencia de Quito, an administrative and judicial district theoretically subordinate to the Viceroyalty of Peru but exercising considerable autonomy over territories stretching from southern Colombia through northern Peru. The Audiencia governed until independence movements emerged in 1809.
The indigenous population under Spanish rule faced forced labor systems beginning with encomienda grants that assigned native communities to Spanish colonists. The crown officially abolished encomienda in 1542 but substituted it with the mita system, which required indigenous men to provide periodic labor for public works, mining, and textile production. The obrajes, textile workshops concentrated around Otavalo and Riobamba, employed thousands of indigenous workers under conditions ranging from wage labor to effective bondage depending on the decade and specific location. By 1600, the Audiencia of Quito operated approximately 120 obrajes producing cloth for export to Peru and New Granada. Epidemic diseases devastated indigenous populations throughout the 1500s and 1600s. Smallpox arrived with the Spanish in the 1520s, killing the Inca emperor Huayna Capac and his designated heir before Pizarro's forces reached Peru. Scholars estimate the indigenous population of the Audiencia territories declined from approximately 1.5 million in 1530 to 600,000 by 1600, though precise pre-contact census data does not exist.
Atahualpa, the last independent Inca emperor, was born around 1502 in Quito or Caranqui to the north. His father Huayna Capac ruled the Inca empire from Cusco but spent years campaigning in the northern territories. When Huayna Capac died of smallpox around 1527, he left the empire divided between Atahualpa, who controlled the northern territories from Quito, and his half-brother Huáscar, who inherited Cusco and the southern regions. Civil war erupted between 1529 and 1532. Atahualpa's generals defeated Huáscar's forces at the battle of Quipaipan near Cusco in April 1532, capturing Huáscar. Atahualpa was traveling south from Quito to consolidate his victory when Spanish forces under Francisco Pizarro captured him at Cajamarca in November 1532. Pizarro executed Atahualpa by garrote on July 26, 1533, after extracting a ransom of gold and silver. Rumiñahui, one of Atahualpa's generals, retreated north to Quito and attempted to organize resistance but Spanish forces captured and executed him in 1535.
The Spanish colonial period from 1534 to 1822 created the social structure that persists in modified form. A small white elite of Spanish-born peninsulares and American-born criollos controlled land, governance, and church hierarchy. Mestizos occupied intermediate positions as artisans, small merchants, and foremen. Indigenous people provided agricultural and mining labor under various coercive systems. The Catholic Church accumulated extensive landholdings through donations and purchases, with religious orders operating haciendas, obrajes, and educational institutions. The Jesuits established particularly profitable operations before their expulsion from all Spanish territories in 1767. The construction of Quito's Compañía de Jesús church from 1605 to 1765 employed indigenous artisans who created baroque interior decoration with gilt columns and ceiling frescoes. The church consumed approximately 160 years of labor and unknown quantities of gold leaf. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 transferred their properties to the crown and other religious orders, disrupting economic networks they had managed.
Eugenio Espejo, born in Quito in 1747 to an indigenous father and mulata mother, trained as a physician and wrote satirical works criticizing colonial administration and advocating educational reform. His journal "Primicias de la Cultura de Quito," published in 1792, was the first periodical printed in Ecuador. Spanish authorities imprisoned Espejo multiple times for his writings. He died in prison in 1795 at age 48. Espejo's writings influenced the criollo elite who organized the independence movement two decades later. On August 10, 1809, a group of criollo intellectuals in Quito deposed the Spanish president of the Audiencia and established a governing junta. Spanish forces from Lima and Bogotá suppressed this movement by November 1809, executing many participants. A second uprising began on October 9, 1820, when Guayaquil declared independence. Simón Bolívar's forces, advancing south from New Granada, joined with local insurgents led by Antonio José de Sucre.