Country Profile Nicaragua

 

  • Capital: Managua
  • Population: 5,891,199 (July 2009 est.)
  • Currency: gold cordoba (NIO)                            
  • Language: 
    • Spanish 97.5% (official)
    • Miskito 1.7%
    • Other 0.8%   note: English and indigenous languages on Atlantic coast
  •  Time zone:  UTC-6
  • Government: Republic
  • Chief of State: Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra

  • GDP real growth rate: 

    • 2% (2008 est.)
    • 3.8% (2007 est.) 
    • 3.9% (2006 est.)
  •  Exports (2008 est):  $3.183 billion f.o.b (includes free trade zones)

  • Main Export Partners(2007): US 31.7%

    • El Salvador 14%
    • Honduras 9.3%
    • Costa Rica 7.2%
    • Canada 5.8%
    • Guatemala 5.5%
    • Mexico 4.8%
  • Imports: $5.279 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.)

  • Main Import partners:

    • US 22.5%
    • Mexico 13.5%
    • Costa Rica 8.4%
    • Guatemala 6.2%
    • El Salvador 4.8%
  • Country Dialing Code: +505
  • Voltage: 120V
  • National Airline: NICA Airlines

Detailed country profile

ECONOMY

GDP real growth rate:

  • 2% (2008 est.)
  • 3.8% (2007 est.)
  • 3.9% (2006 est.)

GDP-Composition by sector

  • Agriculture: 17%
  • Industry: 26.1%
  • Services: 56.9% (2008 est.)

Labor force by occupation (2006 est.):

  • Agriculture: 29%
  • Industry: 19%
  • Services: 52%

Agriculture products:

  • Coffee
  • Bananas
  • Sugarcane
  • Cotton
  • Rice
  • Corn
  • Tobacco
  • Sesame
  • Soya
  • Beans
  • Beef
  • Veal
  • Pork
  • Poultry
  • Dairy products
  • Shrimp
  • Lobsters

Industries:

  • Food processing
  • Chemicals
  • Machinery and metal products
  • Textiles
  • Clothing
  • Petroleum refining and distribution
  • Beverages
  • Footwear
  • Wood

Exports:$3.183 billion f.o.b.; note - includes free trade zones (2008 est.)

Export Commodities

  • Coffee
  • Beef
  • Shrimp and lobster
  • Tobacco
  • Sugar
  • Gold
  • Peanuts

Main Export Partners(2007):

Imports: $5.279 billion f.o.b. (2008 est.)

Import commodities:

  • Consumer goods
  • Machinery and equipment
  • Raw materials
  • Petroleum products

Import partners(2007):

  • US 22.5%
  • Mexico 13.5%
  • Costa Rica 8.4%
  • Venezuela 6.4%
  • Guatemala 6.2%
  • El Salvador 4.8%

Ports and Terminal:

  • Bluefields
  • Corinto
  • El Bluff

Unemployment rate:3.9% plus underemployment of 46.5% (2008 est.)

GOVERNMENT

Government Type:Republic

Executive Branch:

Chief of state: President Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra (since 10 January 2007)
Vice President Jaime MORALES Carazo (since 10 January 2007)
Note - the president is both chief of state and head of government
Cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the president
Elections: president and vice president elected on the same ticket by popular vote for a five-year term (eligible for a second term so long as it is not consecutive); election last held 5 November 2006 (next to be held by November 2011)
election results: Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra elected president - 38.07%, Eduardo MONTEALEGRE 29%, Jose RIZO 26.21%, Edmundo JARQUIN 6.44%

Legal system:Civil law system; Supreme Court may review administrative acts; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction

GEOGRAPHY

Land Boundaries:total: 1,231 km

Border countries:

Climate:Tropical in lowlands, cooler in highlands

Terrain:Extensive Atlantic coastal plains rising to central interior mountains; narrow Pacific coastal plain interrupted by volcanoes

Elevation Extremes:

  • Lowest point: Pacific Ocean 0 m
  • Highest point: Mogoton 2,438 m

Natural resources:

  • Gold
  • Silver
  • Copper
  • Tungsten
  • Lead
  • Zinc
  • Timber
  • Fish

Environment and international agreement:

Party to:

  • Biodiversity
  • Climate Change
  • Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol
  • Desertification
  • Endangered Species
  • Hazardous Wastes
  • Law of the Sea
  • Ozone Layer Protection
  • Ship Pollution
  • Wetlands
  • Whaling

Signed, but not ratified: Environmental Modification

Environment and current issues:

  • Deforestation
  • Soil erosion
  • Water pollution

PEOPLE

Ethnic groups:

  • Mestizo (mixed Amerindian and white) 69%
  • White 17%
  • Black 9%
  • Amerindian 5%

Languages:

  • Spanish 97.5% (official)
  • Miskito 1.7%
  • Other 0.8% (1995 census)

        note: English and indigenous languages on Atlantic coast

Religion:

  • Roman Catholic 58.5%
  • Evangelical 21.6%
  • Moravian 1.6%
  • Jehovah's Witness 0.9%
  • Other 1.7%
  • None 15.7%

HISTORY

Express History

The Pacific coast of Nicaragua was settled as a Spanish colony from Panama in the early 16th century. Independence from Spain was declared in 1821 and the country became an independent republic in 1838.

Britain occupied the Caribbean Coast in the first half of the 19th century, but gradually ceded control of the region in subsequent decades.

Violent opposition to governmental manipulation and corruption spread to all classes by 1978 and resulted in a short-lived civil war that brought the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to power in 1979. Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the US to sponsor anti-Sandinista contra guerrillas through much of the 1980s.

Free elections in 1990, 1996, and 2001, saw the Sandinistas defeated, but voting in 2006 announced the return of former Sandinista President Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra. Nicaragua's infrastructure and economy - hard hit by the earlier civil war and by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 - are slowly being rebuilt.

Source: The world factbook www.cia.gov

 

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