El Salvador

El Salvador    / ɛ l  ˈ s æ l v ə d <span class="IPA" style="font-family:'LucidaSansUnicode','ArialUnicodeMS';"><span style="border-bottom-width:1px;border-bottom-style:dotted;" title="/ɔr/ 'or' in 'born'">ɔr <span class="IPA" style="font-family:'LucidaSansUnicode','ArialUnicodeMS';" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/   (Spanish:  República de El Salvador, literally "Republic of The Savior") is the smallest and the most densely populated country in  Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is  San Salvador ;  Santa Ana  and  San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country as well as Central America. El Salvador borders the Pacific Ocean on the south, and the countries of  Guatemala  to the west and  Honduras  to the north and east. Its easternmost region lies on the coast of the  Gulf of Fonseca, opposite  Nicaragua. As of 2009, El Salvador had a population of approximately 5,744,113 people, composed predominantly of  Mestizos. <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-UNdata_3-1" style="line-height:1em;">[3]

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;font-family:sans-serif;">The colón was the official currency of El Salvador from 1892 to 2001, when it adopted the U.S. Dollar.

<p style="margin-top:0.4em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:19.1875px;font-family:sans-serif;">In 2010 El Salvador ranked in the top 10 among Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index and in the top 3 in Central America (behind Costa Rica and Panama), due in part to ongoing rapid industrialization. In addition, tropical forests and overall forest cover has expanded by nearly 20% from the year 1992 to 2010, making it one of the few countries experiencing reforestation.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-8" style="line-height:1em;">[8]