El Salvador occupies 21,041 square kilometers between Guatemala and Honduras. The Pacific Ocean forms the southern border. The country measures 270 kilometers at its longest east-west axis and 142 kilometers north-south. The Lempa River runs 422 kilometers from Guatemala through El Salvador to the Pacific. Cerro El Pital reaches 2,730 meters at the Honduras border. The Sierra Madre volcanic chain runs east-west through the Central Plateau where most Salvadorans live. Lake Ilopango fills a volcanic crater 16 kilometers east of San Salvador. Lake Coatepeque occupies another crater near Santa Ana. The Gulf of Fonseca indents the southeastern coast where El Salvador meets Honduras and Nicaragua.
San Salvador sits at 658 meters elevation in the Valle de las Hamacas between the San Salvador volcano and Lake Ilopango. The city holds 2.4 million people in its metropolitan area. Santa Ana claims 245,000 residents in the northwest. San Miguel has 280,000 people in the east. Soyapango, Santa Tecla, Apopa, Delgado, and Mejicanos function as contiguous urban extensions of the capital. La Libertad serves coastal traffic 34 kilometers south of San Salvador. Sonsonate and Ahuachapán anchor the western coffee-growing region. La Unión provides the main eastern port on the Gulf of Fonseca.
El Salvador contains 6.3 million people within borders measuring 270 by 142 kilometers. Population density reaches 303 people per square kilometer. Eighty-six percent of Salvadorans are mestizo. Twelve percent identify as white. Indigenous people represent less than one percent. The Pipil were the dominant indigenous group at Spanish contact in 1524. The 1932 matanza killed an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 people, predominantly indigenous and rural poor. Indigenous language use and visible cultural markers declined sharply after 1932. Náhuatl speakers today number in the low thousands. Spanish is the sole official language and the first language of 99 percent of the population.
Pedro de Alvarado entered El Salvador from Guatemala in June 1524. Cuzcatlan was the Pipil capital near modern San Salvador. Alvarado established Villa de San Salvador in 1525. Spain governed El Salvador as part of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. José Matías Delgado signed the Act of Independence from Spain on September 15, 1821. El Salvador joined the Mexican Empire under Agustín de Iturbide from 1822 to 1823. The Federal Republic of Central America formed in 1823. El Salvador became fully independent when that federation dissolved in 1841.
Coffee cultivation expanded across volcanic slopes after 1860. Fourteen families controlled most coffee land by 1900. The global coffee price collapse in 1929 preceded the 1932 peasant uprising led by Farabundo Martí. General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez ordered mass killings across western departments. Military governments ruled from 1931 to 1979. The Christian Democratic Party won the 1972 election but the military prevented José Napoleón Duarte from taking office. Archbishop Óscar Romero spoke against government violence from San Salvador Cathedral. Romero was shot while celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980. The civil war ran from 1980 to 1992. The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front fought against military and government forces. Approximately 75,000 people died. The Chapultepec Peace Accords ended the war on January 16, 1992.
The pupusa is the national dish. Corn masa forms a thick disc around cheese, beans, chicharrón, or loroco flower buds. Curtido made from fermented cabbage accompanies pupusas. National Pupusa Day falls on the second Sunday of November. Yuca frita appears with fried pork. Panes con pollo are sandwiches on round sesame rolls. Tamales de elote use fresh sweet corn rather than dried masa. Atol de elote is a hot sweet corn drink. Horchata combines ground morro seeds, rice, cinnamon, and sugar. Quesadilla salvadoreña is a dense sweet bread made with rice flour and Parmesan cheese. Riguas are fresh corn pancakes cooked on a comal. Nuegados combine fried yuca dough with panela syrup.
The Cathedral Metropolitana de San Salvador occupies the site where Archbishop Romero was assassinated. His tomb lies in the cathedral crypt. The Cathedral was consecrated in 1999. El Salvador del Mundo monument stands at Plaza El Salvador del Mundo on Avenida Roosevelt. The statue depicts Jesus atop a terrestrial globe. The Church of El Rosario in downtown San Salvador was designed by Rubén Martínez in 1971. Curved concrete walls hold stained glass arcs. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace stands in Soyapango. The neo-Gothic cathedral in Santa Ana was completed in 1913.