San Salvador, El Salvador

Capital of El Salvador

About San Salvador

San Salvador is the capital and largest city of El Salvador and of its eponymous department. It is the country's largest agglomeration, serving as the country's political, cultural, educational and financial center. The municipality of San Salvador has 525,990 inhabitants (2024). The Metropolitan Area of San Salvador, which comprises the capital itself and 13 of its municipalities, has a population of 2,404,097. The urban area of San Salvador has a population of 1,600,000 inhabitants.

Etymology

The conquistador Gonzalo de Alvarado founded a mission he named San Salvador in 1525. The name likely referenced the feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus (also called Divino Salvador in Spanish), celebrated on the 6th of August in the Western Church. On that day in 1456 Pope Callixtus III commemorated the Hungarian victory at the Siege of Belgrade against the Ottomans, specifically referencing the perceived divine intervention that led to the Christian victory. As a result, variations of the name 'holy' or 'divine' savior (san or divino salvador) became a popular inspiration for the names of churches and places, such as when Christopher Columbus named the island of Guanahani, Bahamas San Salvador in 1492. In the same vein, Pedro de Alvarado, when organizing his second expedition into the territory of Cuzcatlan, ordered his brother Gonzalo to name the town he founded San Salvador. …

History

Before the Spanish conquest, the Pipil people established their capital, Cuzcatlan, near the current location of San Salvador. Not much is known about Cuzcatlan, as it was abandoned by its inhabitants in an effort to avoid Spanish rule. Under the orders of conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, his associates Gonzalo de Alvarado and Diego de Holguín occupied the empty settlement and began to develop it. Diego de Holguín became the first mayor of San Salvador after the town was founded on 1 April 1525. The town changed location twice, in 1528 and 1545. Originally established in what is now the archeological site of Ciudad Vieja, north of the present-day city, it was moved to the Valle de Las Hamacas, so named for the intense seismic activity that characterizes it. The new site was chosen because it had more space and more fertile land, thanks to the Acelhuate River. …

Geography

The city is located in the Boquerón Volcano Valley, a region of high seismic activity. The city's average elevation is 659 meters (2,162 feet) above sea level, but ranges from a highest point of 1,186 meters (3,891 feet) above sea level to a lowest point of 596 m (1,955 ft) above sea level. The municipality is surrounded by these natural features of the landscape: the Acelhuate River on the east, the San Jacinto Hill on the south east, El Picacho Mountain and the Bicentennial Park on the West, North by the San Antonio River, southward by the Cordillera del Balsamo (Balsam Mountain Range); westward by the Boquerón Volcano and Cerro El Picacho, the highest point in the municipality at 1,929 m (6,329 ft). El Boquerón Volcano was dormant since its last eruption in 1917, but has been active recently. …

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Culture

San Salvador is rich in Spanish heritage, and its historical center contains architecture of a kind not found elsewhere in Latin America. The Metropolitan Cathedral was built in the 1950s combining Baroque and eclectic styles of architecture. The National palace, built in 1905, is a mix of Gothic, Neoclassical, and Renaissance Revival architecture. The National Theater is the oldest theater in Central America, being built in 1917 in the French Renaissance Revival style with details in the Rococo, Romantic and Art Nouveau architectural styles. The building contains three levels of seats, including a Presidential box at the center of the second level, and has seating for 650 people. The structure is surmounted by an ellipsoidal dome, the interior of which is adorned with a mural painted by Carlos Cañas and a crystal chandelier. …

Economy

Economic activity is highly concentrated to the country's capital city, San Salvador. The metropolitan area accounts for 3% of the national territory but 70% of public and private investment is made there. The economy of San Salvador, Antiguo Cuscatlán, and Santa Tecla is a mixed one composed mainly of services, private education, banking, business headquartering, and industrial manufacturing. Other municipalities in the metropolitan area depend either on industry, like Soyapango and Ilopango, on public services, like Mejicanos, or on power generation, as in Nejapa and Apopa. The other municipalities have not developed their own economies, however, they have provided the workforce required for industry in neighboring municipalities. San Salvador, as well as the rest of the country, has used the U.S. dollar as its currency of exchange since 2001. …

Tourism and sites of interest

The historic downtown of San Salvador includes the area where the capital city of El Salvador has been located since the 16th century. The original buildings of the Spanish colony have been mostly destroyed by natural disasters over the years. The few notable surviving buildings were erected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mayor Norman Quijano started several large projects with the goal of restoring the former grandeur of the buildings in the center. One such project is to reroute the public transportation routes so they no longer pass through the historic downtown. Another project is the relocation of unauthorised street vendors to a designated public market. The current National Palace building replaced the old National Palace built in 1866–1870, which was destroyed by fire on 19 December 1889. …

San Salvador

Top travelers for this city

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