History UsefulNotes / ElSalvador

DJ Keoki was born in El Salvador. Other people with Salvadoran ancestry include the actress Anita Page and the model Christy Turlington.

One sectors of the city is called ''Antiguo Cuscatlan'' (Old Cuscatlan a.k.a Old Jeweled City), a reference to the ancient civilization of Cuzcatlan. The neighboring La Libertad Department (State) where the United States' citadel embassy is located, one of the biggest embassies in the continent.

In 1979, the military government was deposed by a group of young army officers who were interested to share power with a civilian government. The reason for the coup had to do with the political loss of the Football War as well as the issues regarding refugees from Honduras. The country then collapsed into [[UsefulNotes/TheSalvadoranCivilWar a civil war that only ended in 1992]]. The considerable number of Salvadorans that fled to the United States during the civil war has made El Salvador politically, culturally and economically dependent on the United States due to family remittances, exports and imports, leading to the two major political parties; the right-wing ARENA, and the left-wing FMLN, being generally pro-United States, no matter the current administration. El Salvador also officially adopted the U.S. dollar in 2001. Many Salvadoran migrants in the United States created and joined criminal gangs, including the feared [=MS13=] and 18th Street Gangs. Under President UsefulNotes/BillClinton, these gangs, alongside thousands of Salvadorans, were deported to El Salvador, causing chaos and anarchy for much of the 1990s and 2000s, to the point that El Salvador was known as the "murder capital of the world". Criminality was temporarily reduced during the gang truce between 2012 to 2014, rose again after the truce collapsed, steadily decreased after its 2015 peak (when the country had a homicide rate of 106 per 100,000 people), then ''drastically'' reduced after President Nayib Bukele (who won mostly through his tough-on-crime campaign) took power in 2018. By 2023, El Salvador actually had a lower homicide rate than the United States, and the government's methods on clamping down crime has been quietly copied by its Latin American neighbors (including as far away as UsefulNotes/{{Uruguay}}).

If you know El Salvador from American media, then the only things you know are probably about lurid tales of BananaRepublic, gangs, and criminality. Then again, Americans do that to the rest of Latin America.

* '''Area:''' 21,041 km
(8,124 sq mi) (148th)

El Salvador, which is Spanish for [[MessianicArchetype The Savior]] and officially the Republic of El Salvador ('''Spanish:''' ''República de El Salvador''), is a little Central American country squeezed right between UsefulNotes/{{Honduras}}, UsefulNotes/{{Guatemala}} and the Pacific Ocean.

While small in size, it is considered an important economic hub for Central America thanks to its official adoption of the United States dollar (USD) and for its very close ties with the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, with Salvadorans being the fourth-largest Hispanic group living there.

!! History
Once upon a time, the land was inhabited by [[UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations Mayas]] and other Mesoamerican cultures such as the Pipil and Lenca civilizations. When the Spanish came along, the tribes resisted the conquest for a long time, but were eventually dominated by the 1530s.

The land was part of the General Captaincy of Guatemala until the Mexican Independence, when all the countries of Central America lost their status as Spanish dependencies and joined the new Mexican Empire. However, unlike its neighbors, El Salvador didn’t want to join TheEmpire, so they had to convince them… with military power… just in time for the other countries to decide not to join Mexico but to form their own federation.

Since then, El Salvador has faced many struggles: economical problems and military coups. Their fertile lands attracted the attention of the United Fruit Company, the company that instigated most of the {{Banana Republic}}s of the region.

In 1969, as a result of the political tensions originating from the United Fruit Company’s administration of the zone and Salvadorans being brutally persecuted in Honduras, El Salvador went to war with Honduras in UsefulNotes/TheFootballWar, proving that UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball is indeed a SeriousBusiness (in any case, the football issue was just the trigger, the resentment had been piling up since way before that). The military victory was won by El Salvador, who almost reached Tegucigalpa (Honduras' capital) before their supply lines collapsed, which caused their entire advance to stall. This benefited Honduras as the Organization of American States forced both nations to stop the fighting and El Salvador not only was forced to withdraw its forces, but also they had to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees, giving Honduras a victory-by-default. The bad management of the war from the government’s part, coupled with all the problems in the country and the lack of support to the expatriates from Honduras led in 1980 to a [[UsefulNotes/TheSalvadoranCivilWar civil war that only ended in 1992]], but the turmoil still lingers on today (to the point it is considered [[WretchedHive the murder capital of the world]]), so it was not very recommended to visit the country, though in recent years, it has become more modernized and safer in the middle-class neighborhoods and shopping centers.

!! The Country in the Modern Age
The considerable number of Salvadorans that fled to the United States during the civil war has made El Salvador politically, culturally and economically dependent on the United States due to family remittances, exports and imports, leading to the two major political parties; the right-wing A.R.E.N.A., and the left-wing F.M.L.N., being generally pro-United States, no matter the current administration. Also, they were one of the few countries that recognized UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}} rather than the [[UsefulNotes/{{China}} Popular Republic of China]] until Salvadoran president; Salvador Sanchez Ceren (F.M.L.N.), out-of-the-blue announced that they would cut ties with UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}} [[note]](The Taiwanese government claims that they cut ties with El Salvador after the F.M.L.N. government wanted the Taiwanese government to heavily invest in Puerto La Unión, a coastal port built in the Salvadoran part of the Gulf of Fonseca (a gulf shared with Honduras and Nicaragua), a port that many analysts considers to be a waste of infrastructure and money.)[[/note]] in favor of UsefulNotes/{{China}} in August 2018.

El Salvador was one of the countries that sent troops to UsefulNotes/{{Iraq}} during UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror from 2004 to 2008, being the only Central American country to do so and one of the last forces to leave Iraq after the occupation ended.

One curious (so to speak) detail about El Salvador is that it’s the only country in the region without an African population. This is because it has no coast on the Atlantic and the fact that a dictator in the 1930s issued race laws prohibiting the entry of Africans, Gypsies (i.e. Romani), Arabs, Asians and others to the country. This has led to the country being overwhelmingly mestizo (people of both European and Native American descent) with a notable white and Palestinian population.[[labelnote:*]]If the "Palestinian" bit doesn't jibe with the aforementioned race laws... many Middle Eastern immigrants in that era were Christians, and a large number of ''those'' (especially the Lebanese) were Catholic.[[/labelnote]]

El Salvador is known for trying too hard to industrialize and modernize after the peace accords ended the civil war, with their government even adopting the U.S. dollar as their main currency, and even more recently adopting UsefulNotes/{{Bitcoin}} as legal tender alongside the dollar, but they are always being outpaced by Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama in foreign investment and tourism (mostly due to political corruption, gridlock, mishandling of funds given by the United States and gang-related crime). Their rapid urban industralization and modernization left the poorest neighbourhoods and rural towns in a state of disrepair that is still present to this day.

In American media, El Salvador is almost non-existent (have you seen any tropes about its people or culture?) due to many factors not limited to its small size and history of just being another BananaRepublic of the region until its twelve years-long civil war (1980 - 1992) led to hundreds of thousands of refugees leaving for the United States. Even today, El Salvador is only used to talk about gangs, gang culture and illegal immigration in TV shows and movies, with its government being blamed for "allowing" the creation of the ''[=MS13=]'' and ''18th Street Gangs''. (In reality, those gangs were formed in UsefulNotes/{{California}}, but many of their members were deported back by the thousands to a war-torn El Salvador during TheNineties by orders of UsefulNotes/BillClinton and made it their ''de facto'' headquarters by the [[TurnOfTheMillennium late-2000s]]).

The Capital of El Salvador; San Salvador City [[note]](originally named ''Great San Salvador'' but after a few near-apocalyptic earthquakes...)[[/note]], is situated in the middle of the country in the Valley of the Hammocks; a very mountainous and windy area often affected by earthquakes (thus the name). The city itself has been described as a miniature Los Angeles (it's officially a sister city) built in a green valley rather than a dry desert. Nearly all the international commerce and investment is done there and it shows as it's the only city that can be considered modern by global standards but still lagging behind Guatemala City, San Jose (Costa Rica) and Panama City.

One funny aspect of the city is that it shares a section named ''Antiguo Cuscatlan'' (Old Cuscatlan a.k.a Old Jeweled City) with the neighboring La Libertad Department (State) where the United States' citadel embassy is located, one of the biggest embassies in the continent.

* A BananaRepublic version of El Salvador is the setting of an 80's ''Franchise/TeenTitans'' story.
* San Miguel appeared in a 1993 ''[[Franchise/XMen Uncanny X-Men]]'' story.

In American media, El Salvador is almost non-existent (have you seen any tropes about its people or culture?) due to many factors not limited to its small size and history of just being another BananaRepublic of the region until its twelve years-long civil war (1980 - 1992) led to hundreds of thousands of refugees leaving for the United States. Even today, El Salvador is only used to talk about gangs, gang culture and illegal immigration in TV shows and movies, with its government being blamed for "allowing" the creation of the ''[=MS13=]'' and ''18th Street Gangs''. (In reality, those gangs were formed in California, but many of their members were deported back by the thousands to a war-torn El Salvador during TheNineties by orders of UsefulNotes/BillClinton and made it their ''de facto'' headquarters by the late-2000s).

While small in size, it is considered an important economic hub for Central America thanks to its official adoption of the United States dollar (USD) and for its very close ties with the United States, with Salvadorans being the fourth-largest Hispanic group living there.

In 1969, as a result of the political tensions originated by the United Fruit Company’s administration of the zone and Salvadorans being brutally persecuted in Honduras, El Salvador went to war with Honduras in UsefulNotes/TheFootballWar, proving that UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball is indeed a SeriousBusiness (in any case, the football issue was just the trigger, the resentment had been piling up since way before that). The military victory was to El Salvador, who almost reached Tegucigalpa (Hondura's capital) before their supply lines collapsed which caused their entire advance to stall. This benefited Honduras as the Organization of the Americas forced both nations to stop the fighting and El Salvador not only was forced to withdraw its forces but also they had to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees, giving Honduras a victory-by-default. The bad management of the war from the government’s part, coupled with all the problems in the country and the lack of support to the expatriates from Honduras led in 1980 to a [[UsefulNotes/TheSalvadoranCivilWar civil war that only ended in 1992]], but the turmoil still lingers today (to the point it is considered [[WretchedHive the murder capital]]), so it was not very recommended to visit the country, though in the recent years, it has become more modernized and safer in the middle-class neighborhoods and shopping centers.

The considerable number of Salvadorans that fled to the United States during the civil war has made El Salvador politically, culturally and economically dependent on the United States due to family remittances, exports and imports, leading to the two major political parties; the right-wing A.R.E.N.A., and the left-wing F.M.L.N., being generally pro-United States, no matter the current administration. Also, they were one of the few countries that recognized UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}} rather than the [[UsefulNotes/{{China}} Popular Republic of China]] until Salvadoran president; Salvador Sanchez Ceren (F.M.L.N.), out-of-the-blue announced that they would cut ties with UsefulNotes/{{Taiwan}} [[note]](The Taiwanese government claims that they cutted ties with El Salvador after the F.M.L.N. government wanted the Taiwanese government to heavily invest in Puerto La Unión, a coastal port built in the Salvadoran part of the Gulf of Fonseca (a gulf shared with Honduras and Nicaragua), a port that many analysts considers to be a waste of infrastructure and money.)[[/note]] in favor of UsefulNotes/{{China}} in August 2018.

El Salvador is known for trying too hard to industrialize and modernize after the peace accords ended the civil war with their government even adopting the U.S. dollar as their main currency, and even more recently adopting UsefulNotes/{{Bitcoin}} as legal tender alongside the dollar, but they are always being outpaced by Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama in foreign investment and tourism (mostly due to political corruption, gridlock, mishandling of funds given by the United States and gang-related crime). Their rapid urban industralization and modernization left the poorest neighbourhoods and rural towns in a state of disrepair that is still present to this day.

In American media, El Salvador is almost non-existent (have you seen any tropes about its people or culture?) due to many factors not limited to its small size and history of just being another BananaRepublic of the region until its twelve years-long civil war (1980 - 1992) led to hundreds of thousands of refugees leaving for the United States. Even today, El Salvador is only used to talk about gangs, gang culture and illegal immigration in TV shows and movies with its government being blamed for "allowing" the creation of the ''[=MS13=]'' and ''18th Street Gangs'' (in reality those gangs were formed in California but many of their members were deported back by the thousands to a war-torn El Salvador during TheNineties by orders of UsefulNotes/BillClinton and made it their ''de facto'' headquarters by the late-2000s).

While small in size, it is considered an important economic hub for Central America thanks to its official adoption of the United States dollar (USD) and for its very close ties with the United States, with Salvadorans being the fourth largest Hispanic groups living there.