* Norteño is an alcoholic beverage ( aguardiente ) from Ecuador

In Ecuador, aguardiente is also derived from sugarcane, but unlike Colombia, it is left largely unflavoured.

** Eunectes murinus, the green anaconda, the largest species, is found east of the Andes in Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and on the island of Trinidad.

* 1557 – Cuenca is founded in Ecuador.

Ayahuasca is the Hispanicized spelling of a word in the Quechua languages, which are spoken in the Andean states of Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia.

About 15 % of the population is foreign, most of them immigrants from Argentina, Ecuador, and Colombia who have arrived in the previous 10 years.

Abacá ( ; from Spanish " abacá " for Musa textilis ), Musa textilis, is a species of banana native to the Philippines, grown as a commercial crop in the Philippines, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.

Today, abaca is produced commercially in only three countries: Philippines, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.

In 1969, Colombia formed what is now the Andean Community along with Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru ( Venezuela joined in 1973, and Chile left in 1976 ).

Pan-American Cheerleading Championships ( PCC ): The PCC was held for the first time in 2009 in the city of Latacunga, Ecuador and is the continental championship organised by the Pan-American Federation of Cheerleading ( PFC ).

* 1534 – The city of Quito in Ecuador is founded by Spanish settlers led by Sebastián de Belalcázar.

The Spanish founded modern day Quito and Guayaquil as part of the political-administration era which lasted until the war of Independence, the rise of Gran Colombia and Simón Bolívar to the final separation of his vision into what is known today as the Republic of Ecuador.

Ecuador is a country in western South America, bordering the Pacific Ocean at the Equator, for which the country is named.

Cotopaxi in Ecuador is one of the world's highest active volcanos.

Ecuador is bounded on the north by the Pacific Ocean, and has 2, 337 km of coastline.

Ecuador has a total area is, including the Galápagos Islands.

Ecuador is one of the smaller countries in South America, slightly smaller than the U. S. state of Nevada.

Ecuador is divided into three continental regions — the Costa ( coast ), Sierra ( mountains ), and Oriente ( east )— and one insular region, the Galápagos Islands ( officially Archipiélago de Colón ).

The census in Ecuador is conducted every 10 years, and its objective is to obtain the number of people residing within its borders.

Politics of Ecuador takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Ecuador is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system.

The economy of Ecuador is based mostly on exports of bananas, oil, shrimp, gold, other primary agricultural products and money transfers from nearly a million Ecuadorian emigrants employed abroad.

Ecuador is the world's largest exporter of bananas ($ 936. 5 million in 2002 ) and a major exporter of shrimp ($ 251 million in 2002 ).

In the agricultural sector, Ecuador is a major exporter of bananas ( first place worldwide in production and export ), flowers, and the eighth largest producer of cocoa.

The Military of Ecuador is under civilian control.

By 1500 Tupa's son, Huayna Capac, overcame the resistance of these populations and that of the Cara, and thus incorporated most of modern-day Ecuador into Tawantinsuyu, as the Inca empire was known.

Missions in the Oriente were abandoned, and many of the best schools and the most efficient haciendas and obrajes lost the key that made them outstanding institutions in colonial Ecuador.

Nevertheless in 1821, convinced that under Bolivar's leadership the nation's destiny would move in the most progressive direction, the Isthmus joined Venezuela, New Granada ( present day Colombia ) and latter Ecuador, in 1822.

In Ecuador, the potato, as well as being a staple with most dishes, is featured in the hearty locro de papas, a thick soup of potato, squash, and cheese.

Among those groups were the Chibchas ( or " Muiscas " or " Muyscas ") and the Tairona, of Colombia, the cañari of Ecuador, the Quechuas of Peru, and the Aymaras of Bolivia were the 3 most important sedentary Indian groups in South America.

Next to the Quechua of Peru and Ecuador and the Aymara in Bolivia, the Chibchas of the eastern and north-eastern Highlands of Colombia were the most striking of the sedentary indigenous peoples in South America.

There has been considerable confusion over its southern range limit, but specimen records from most of Colombia ( only exception is far northwest ) and Ecuador are all South American coatis.

Guayaquil (), officially Santiago de Guayaquil (), is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador, with around 3. 5 million in the metropolitan area, as well as the nation's main port.

With a population of over 3 million people, it is the most populous province in Ecuador.

They are distributed from southeastern Canada, through most of the continental United States, to Central America, down to western Ecuador and northern Venezuela of northern South America.

El pasacalle is a form of dance music, while the sentimental el yarabi is probably the most popular form in Ecuador.

As Colonel Ortega recalls “ Our goals have always been ambitious, we want to work with energy and dedication in order to place TAME as the most important airline in Ecuador .”

These islands include the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador ; the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, United States ; the Russian islands of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands ; Taiwan and other islands of the Republic of China ; the Philippines ; islands in the South China Sea, which includes the disputed South China Sea Islands ; most of the islands of Indonesia ; and the island nation of Japan, which comprises the Japanese Archipelago.

Throughout the Amazon Basin ( including the interiors of Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil ), chicha is made most often with cassava ( yuca ) root, sometimes with plantain.

The Cenepa War was the most recent military clash between Ecuador and Peru over a long standing territorial dispute that dated back to the first decades of the 19th century, when both countries came into being after the Wars of Independence of the Spanish colonies in South America.

She was successful at bullrings in Ecuador and Mexico and is one of the most well-recognized bullfighters at home.

The Venezuelan government, through the Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information considers El País to be one of the Spanish newspapers most critical of the left-wing governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

* In Ecuador, the most popular hypermarket chain is Megamaxi, a division of Corporación Favorita, which has several other store formats.

The Chocó Department makes up most of the ecoregion known as El Chocó that extends from Panama to Ecuador.

Among the most prominent are the South American Condor, of which only 80 remain throughout all Ecuador ; the Curiquinga, a large black and white raptor, and the largest hummingbird of the world, the Giant Hummingbird ( Patagona gigas ), which lives only on agave flowers.

It is called paca in most of its range, but tepezcuintle in most of Mexico and Central America, pisquinte in northern Costa Rica, jaleb in the Yucatán peninsula, conejo pintado in Panamá, guanta in Ecuador, majás or picuro in Peru, jochi pintado in Bolivia, and boruga in Colombia.

After the price of silver rose above the nominal value of most silver coins in the 1930s, Ecuador embargoed the export of silver ( May 17, 1935 ).

In 1903, in the middle of the rubber boom, Iquitos had 9, 438 inhabitants ( census of Benito Lords ), of which 542 were foreigners, most of them were from Spain ( 95 ) Brazil ( 80 ), China ( 74 ), Portugal ( 64 ) and as many from Italy, England, France, Ecuador, USA, Russia, Switzerland and Morocco.