{"id":60,"date":"2019-07-29T19:56:29","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T19:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site45.blogs.americavip.com\/2019\/07\/29\/about-ecuador\/"},"modified":"2020-06-16T11:14:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-16T11:14:00","slug":"about-ecuador","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/2019\/07\/29\/about-ecuador\/","title":{"rendered":"About Ecuador"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ecuador\"

Ecuador<\/p><\/div>\n

Ecuador, located in a northwest region of South America, has a rich history that goes back to pre-Columbian times, when much of that country was part of the Inca Empire.
\nAll that changed when Spanish conquistadores (led by explorer Francisco Pizarro) invaded Ecuador in 1531. During the early part of Spanish colonial rule, Ecuador was incorporated into the Viceroyalty of Per\u00fa. In 1720, Ecuador became part of the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada.<\/p>\n

Due to the independence struggles that both Venezuelan hero Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar and his Argentine counterpart Jos\u00e9 de San Mart\u00edn waged against Spanish colonial rule in the early 1800s throughout South America, Ecuador became part of the independent nation of Gran Colombia. Still, the vastness of \u201cGran Colombia\u201d precluded its longevity, due to the impracticality of ruling over such a large territory. As a result, by 1830, the country was broken up into three separate countries. Interestingly, the country originally took up the name \u201cRepublic of the Equator\u201d (since it was indeed located along the planet\u2019s equator).<\/p>\n

Over time, Ecuador, an agrarian economy well into the 20th century, originally had more territory (extending into the Amazon), but was eventually lost to Peru, due to occasional conflicts with that country. This explains the country\u2019s modest size as of now. Like other Latin countries, Ecuador went through periods of both democratic and military rule during much of the 20th century (especially the 1960s & 1970s, when a variety of concerns — ranging from fears of Cuban Marxist influence in the region, to petroleum concessions \u2013 were influential in periodic military interventions at the time).<\/p>\n

Even into the 21st century, Ecuador was still not immune to periods of political & economic instability. In 1999-2000, Ecuador’s economy suffered from a banking crisis, with GDP contracting by 5.3% and poverty increasing significantly. In March 2000, the Ecuadorian Congress approved a series of structural reforms that also provided for the adoption of the U.S. dollar as its local currency. Such Dollarization stabilized the economy, and positive growth returned in the years that followed, helped by high oil prices (petroleum being over half of Ecuador\u2019s export earnings), remittances, and increased non-traditional exports.<\/p>\n

In addition, a measure of political stability was achieved with the arrival of social democratic politician Rafael Correa into the presidency. He sparked some controversy in international circles by openly embracing other leftist Latin rulers like Venezuela\u2019s Hugo Chavez, Cuba\u2019s Ra\u00fal Castro, and Bolivia\u2019s Evo Morales. Correa also sought to move his country away from neoliberal economic planning by reducing the influence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over his country\u2019s economy. Correa also went as far as expanding social projects to alleviate poverty in the country, as well as declaring his country\u2019s national debt illegitimate (defaulting on over $3 billion in bonds).<\/p>\n

With tourism reaching just 2% of the country\u2019s GDP in 2011, Ecuador has since made efforts to increase its competitiveness as an international tourist destination. This was most notable in early 2015, when the Ecuadorian government spent $3.8 million to run ads promoting its tourism destinations during the heavily-watched Super Bowl (American football) game. The reason for this was simple: after nearby Colombia, America was and still is Ecuador\u2019s second-largest tourism market. Since one in four American tourists visit the Galapagos Islands, Ecuadorian tourism officials wanted to raise awareness of the country\u2019s other destinations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ecuador, located in a northwest region of South America, has a rich history that goes back to pre-Columbian times, when much of that country was part of the Inca Empire. All that changed when Spanish conquistadores (led by explorer Francisco Pizarro) invaded Ecuador in 1531. During the early part of Spanish colonial rule, Ecuador was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecuador","category-general-info","category-things-to-see-and-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/contents.ecuador-vip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}