Demographics of El Salvador

The migration rate accelerated during the period of 1979 to 1981, this marked the beginning of the civil unrest and the spread of political killings.[6] The total impact of civil wars, dictatorships and socioeconomics drove over a million Salvadorans (both as immigrants and refugees) into the United States; Guatemala is the second country that hosts more Salvadorans behind the United States, approximately 110,000 Salvadorans according to the national census of 2010.[7] in addition small Salvadoran communities sprung up in Canada, Australia, Belize, Panama, Costa Rica, Italy, Taiwan and Sweden since the migration trend began in the early 1970s.[8] The 2010 U.S. Census counted 1,648,968 Salvadorans in the United States, up from 655,165 in 2000.[9]

Painting of the First Independence Movement celebration in San Salvador, El Salvador

Salvadorans celebrating independence day parade.

86.3% of the population are mestizo, having mixed indigenous and European ancestry.[1] Historical evidence and census supports the explanation of "strong sexual asymmetry", as a result of a strong bias favoring matings between European males and Native Salvadoran females, and to the important indigenous male mortality during the Conquest. The genetics thus suggests the native men were sharply reduced in numbers due to the war and disease. Large numbers of Spaniard men settled in the region and married or forced themselves with the local women. The Natives were forced to adopt Spanish names, language, and religion, and in this way, the Lencas and Pipil women and children were Hispanicized. A vast majority over 90% of Salvadorans are Mestizo/Native Salvadoran. Conservative figures say the Mestizo and Native Salvadoran populations make up 87% of the populations and semi-Liberal figures say that the Native Salvadoran population reaches upwards to 8%-10% of the population plus the high percentage of Mestizo making El Salvador a highly indigenous nation. In the mestizo population, Salvadorans who are racially European, especially Mediterranean, as well as Afro-Salvadoran, and the indigenous people in El Salvador who do not speak indigenous languages or have an indigenous culture, all identify themselves as being culturally mestizo.[10]

Map of El Salvador's Native American civilizations and their former kingdoms:

  Kingdom of the Lenca people

  Kingdom of the Cacaopera people

  Kingdom of the Xinca people

  Kingdom Maya Poqomam people

  Kingdom of Maya Ch'orti' people

  Kingdom of the Alaguilac people

  Kingdom of the Mixe people

  Kingdom of the Mangue language

  Kingdom of the Pipil people

Indigenous Salvadoran woman from Panchimalco

Salvadoran school children singing national anthem

According to the Salvadoran Government, about 1% of the population are of full or partial indigenous origin. The largest most dominant Native Salvadoran groups in El Salvador are the Lenca people and Pipil people followed by small enclaves of Maya peoples: (Poqomam people/Chorti people), Cacaopera people, Xinca people, Alaguilac people, Mixe people, Mangue language people, as well as an Olmec past. (Pipil, located in the west and central part of the country, and Lenca, found east of the Lempa River). There are small populations of Cacaopera people in the Morazán Department and a few Ch'orti' people live in the department of Ahuachapán, near the border of Guatemala.

The number of indigenous people in El Salvador have been criticized by indigenous organizations and academics as too small and accuse the government of denying the existence of indigenous Salvadorans in the country.[11] According to the National Salvadoran Indigenous Coordination Council (CCNIS) and CONCULTURA (National Council for Art and Culture at the Ministry of Education ), approximately 70,000 or 1 per cent of Salvadorian peoples are indigenous.[12] Nonetheless, very few Amerindians have retained their customs and traditions, having over time assimilated into the dominant Mestizo/Spanish culture. The low numbers of indigenous people may be partly explained by historically high rates of old-world diseases, absorption into the mestizo population, as well as mass murder during the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising (or La Matanza) which saw (estimates of) up to 30,000 peasants killed in a short period of time. Many authors note that since La Matanza the indigenous in El Salvador have been very reluctant to describe themselves as such (in census declarations for example) or to wear indigenous dress or be seen to be taking part in any cultural activities or customs that might be understood as indigenous.[13] Departments and cities in the country with notable indigenous populations include Sonsonate (especially Izalco, Nahuizalco, and Santo Domingo), Cacaopera, and Panchimalco, in the department of San Salvador.[12]

Young Salvadoran women

Spaniard conquistador Pedro de Alvarado and his army became the first to settle and establish European colonies in El Salvador in 1524.

Salvadoran children from Metapan

Some 12.7% of Salvadorans are white. This population is made up mostly of those of Spanish origin, while there are also Salvadorans of French, German, Swiss, English, Irish, and Italian descent. A majority of Central European settlers in El Salvador arrived during World War II as refugees from the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Switzerland. In northern departments like the Chalatenango Department, it is well known that residents in the area are of pure Spanish descent; settling in the region that is now Chalatenango in the late 18th century.[14] The governor of San Salvador, Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet, ordered families from northern Spain (Galicia and Asturias) to settle the area to compensate for the lack of indigenous people to work the land; it is not uncommon to see people with blond hair, fair skin, and blue or green eyes in municipalities like Dulce Nombre de María, La Palma, and El Pital. The majority of Salvadorans of Spanish descent possess Mediterranean racial features: olive skin and dark hair and eyes (black or dark brown), and they identify themselves as mestizo, like mentioned above.

Arab Salvadorans include Palestinian Salvadoran, Lebanese Salvadoran, Syrian Salvadoran and Egyptian Salvadoran.

The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele is a Palestinian Salvadoran

There is a significant Arab population (of about 100,000);[15] mostly from Palestine (especially from the area of Bethlehem), but also from Lebanon. Salvadorans of Palestinian descent numbered around 70,000 individuals, while Salvadorans of Lebanese descent is around 25,000.[16] There is also a small community of Jews who came to El Salvador from France, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey.

The history of the Arabs in El Salvador dates back to the end of the 19th century, because of religious clashes, which induced many Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians and Syrians to leave the land where they were born, in search of countries where they at least lived in An atmosphere of relative peace. There were also other reasons of a subjective nature, based on the hope of success, of achieving success and fortune and obtaining recognition from others.

It was not until the period between 1880s and 1920s, that the Arab migration began, when more than 121,000 people began to arrive in El Salvador, which at the time in 1879, El Salvador had a small local population of 482,400 and by 1920 El Salvador's population had grown to 1,168,000. These Arabs settled in the cities of San Salvador, San Miguel, Santa Ana, Santa Tecla, Usulutan and La Union.[17]

Arab immigration in El Salvador began at the end of the 19th century in the wake of the repressive policies applied by the Ottoman Empire against Maronite Catholics. Several of the destinations that the Lebanese chose at that time were in countries of the Americas, including El Salvador. This resulted in the Arab diaspora residents being characterized by forging in devoutly Christian families and very attached to their beliefs, because in these countries they can exercise their faith without fear of persecution, which resulted in the rise of Lebanese-Salvadoran, Syrian-Salvadoran and Palestinian-Salvadoran communities in El Salvador.[18]

Currently the strongest community is the Palestinian (70,000 descendants), followed by the Lebanese settled in San Salvador with more than 27,000 direct descendants, mostly (95%) Catholic and Orthodox Christians. The slaughter of Lebanese and Palestinian Arab Christians at the hands of Muslims, initiated the first Lebanese migration to El Salvador.[19]

Inter-ethnic marriage in the Lebanese community with Salvadorans, regardless of religious affiliation, is very high; most have only one father with Lebanese nationality and mother of Salvadoran nationality. As a result, some of them speak Arabic fluently. But most, especially among younger generations, speak Spanish as a first language and Arabic as a second.[20]

During the war between Israel and Lebanon in 1948 and during the Six Day War, thousands of Lebanese left their country and went to El Salvador. First they arrived at La Libertad, were they comprised half of the economic activity of immigrants.

Lebanon had been an iqta of the Ottoman Empire. Although the imperial administration, whose official religion was Islam, guaranteed freedom of worship for non-Muslim communities, and Lebanon in particular had a semi-autonomous status, the situation for practitioners of the Maronite Catholic Church was complicated, since they had to cancel exaggerated taxes and suffered limitations for their culture. These tensions were expressed in a rebellion in 1821 and a war against the Druze in 1860. The hostile climate caused many Lebanese to sell their property and take ships in the ports of Sidon, Beirut and Tripoli heading for the Americas.

Statistically in El Salvador, there are about 120,000 Arabs, of Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian and Palestinian ancestry. In the case of these Arab-Salvadorans, although not all the families arrived together, they were the ones that lead the economy in the country.

In 1939, the Arab community based in San Salvador organized and founded the "Arab Youth Union Society"[21]

Salvadoran boy in La Unión, El Salvador

Pardo is the term that was used in colonial El Salvador to describe a tri-racial Afro-Mestizo person of Indigenous, European, and African descent. Afro-Salvadorans are the descendants of the African population that were enslaved and shipped to El Salvador to work in mines in specific regions of El Salvador. They have mixed into and were naturally bred out by the general Mestizo population, which is a combination of a Mestizo majority and the minority of Pardo people, both of whom are racially mixed populations. Thus, there remains no significant extremes of African physiognomy among Salvadorans like there is in the other countries of Central America. A total of only 10,000 African slaves were brought to El Salvador over the span of 75 years, starting around 1548, about 25 years after El Salvador's colonization. El Salvador is the only country in Central America that does not have English Antillean (West Indian) or Garifuna populations of the Caribbean, but instead had older colonial African slaves that came straight from Africa. This is the reason why El Salvador is the only country in Central America not to have a caribbeanized culture, and instead preserved its classical Central America culture.

The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.[5]

Structure of the population (May 2007 census):

Structure of the population (July 2011; estimates based on the 2007 census trends):

6,187,271 (July 2018 est.)

mestizo 86.3%, white 12.7%, indigenous 0.2% (includes Lenca, Kakawira, Nahua-Pipil), black 10.5%, other 0.6% (2007 est.)

Population pyramid of El Salvador in 2017

0-14 years: 25.3% (male 802,813 /female 762,852)

15-24 years: 19.88% (male 619,550 /female 610,725)

25-54 years: 39.8% (male 1,143,226 /female 1,319,138)

55-64 years: 7.32% (male 198,513 /female 254,640)

65 years and over: 7.69% (male 208,817 /female 266,997) (2018 est.)

El Salvador is the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America. It is well into its demographic transition, experiencing slower population growth, a decline in its number of youths, and the gradual aging of its population. The increased use of family planning has substantially lowered El Salvador's fertility rate, from approximately 6 children per woman in the 1970s to replacement level today. A 2008 national family planning survey showed that female sterilization remained the most common contraception method in El Salvador - its sterilization rate is among the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean - but that the use of injectable contraceptives is growing. Fertility differences between rich and poor and urban and rural women are narrowing.[2]

total: 27.6 years. Country comparison to the world: 143rd

male: 26.1 years

female: 29.1 years (2018 est.)

16.1 births/1,000 population (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 111st

5.8 deaths/1,000 population (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 173rd

1.84 children born/woman (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 146th

-7.8 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 210th

0.25% (2018 est.) Country comparison to the world: 177th

20.8 years (2008 est.)

note: median age at first birth among women 25-29

72% (2014)

total dependency ratio: 56.8 (2015 est.)

youth dependency ratio: 44.4 (2015 est.)

elderly dependency ratio: 12.4 (2015 est.)

potential support ratio: 8 (2015 est.)

total population: 75.1 years. Country comparison to the world: 114th

male: 71.8 years

female: 78.6 years (2018 est.)

urban population: 72% of total population (2018)

rate of urbanization: 1.57% annual rate of change (2015-20 est.)

• Spanish (official)
• English (among educated and Salvadoran Americans)
• Arabic (among Palestinian Salvadoran)
• Nawat (about 500 native speakers among Pipil people in the western part of the country)
• Other indigenous languages include Lenca, which has a few semi-speakers, and Cacaopera, which is extinct
• In the past, Mixe, Xinca, Poqomam, and Ch'orti' were spoken in the territory of the country
• Salvadoran Sign Language (SSL)

Roman Catholic 50%, Protestant 36%, other 2%, none 12% (2014 est.)

definition: age 15 and over can read and write (2016 est.)

total population: 88.1%

male: 90.3%

female: 86.3% (2016 est.)

total: 12 years

male: 12 years

female: 12 years (2016)

total: 9.8%. Country comparison to the world: 128th

male: 9.6%

female: 10.1% (2016)

• Noun: Salvadoran(s)
• Adjective: Salvadoran