Nicaragua - Tourism and Travel

The Republic of Nicaragua is located in Central America.

Nicaragua has coasts on the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

It has an area of 50,193 square miles (130,000 square kilometers).

The capital of Nicaragua is Managua.

The official currency of Nicaragua is the córdoba oro, which is made up of 100 centavos.

Nicaragua has a presidential system of government.

Geography and Climate

The western part of Nicaragua is well developed, while the east is mostly rain forest.

There are mountain ranges separating the eastern and western parts of the country.

The land reaches its highest altitude in the north.

The Sierra Madre Mountains, a volcanic mountain chain, runs from Mexico, through Guatemala and Honduras, and then to lakes Nicaragua and Managua in Nicaragua.

Lake Nicaragua, a huge lake in western Nicaragua, is 3,191 square miles ( 8,264 square kilometers) in area. It contains about 400 islands. Some of these  are active volcanoes.

A belt of volcanic cones has cut Lake Nicaragua off from the Pacific. This has led to the evolution of new species of freshwater shark and freshwater swordfish that now live in the lake.

Río San Juan, which forms part of the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, flows from Lake Nicaragua into the sea.

Lake Managua is also in the west.

Lake Nicaragua, Río San Juan, Lake Managua and the Gulf of Fonseca, which borders Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, are part of a rift valley that runs across Central America.

Nicaragua has a tropical climate.

People

5,743,000 people live in Nicaragua.

69% are mixed white and Native American, 14% are white, 8% are black, 5% are Native American and 4% are mixed black and Native American.

The official language is Spanish. Other languages spoken include English Creole and Miskito.

80% of the people are Roman Catholic and 17% are Evangelical Protestant.

Economy

Nicaragua's economy is mostly based on agriculture.

Important exports are bananas, coffee, seafood and cotton.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. It relies heavily on foreign aid.

History

Nicaragua became a colony of Spain in the sixteenth century.

It was part of the First Mexican Empire, which lasted form 1821 to 1823.

Nicaragua then became part of the United Provinces of Central America.

In 1838, Nicaragua became an independent republic.

The United States of American has a long history of involvement in Nicaraguan affairs.

Between 1912 and 1933, United States forces occupied Nicaragua to ensure complete US control over a proposed canal through the country.

During the 1980s, the Reagan administration illegally sold arms to Iran in order to obtain money to fund the guerilla activity of Nicaraguan rebels, known as Contras, with the justification that these rebels were defending their country against communism. The scandal in the United States has become known as the Iran-Contra Affair.