Paraguay is a landlocked country in the heart of South America, bordered by Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia. One of only two landlocked nations on the continent, it is a country of two contrasting halves divided by the Paraguay River, the fertile, populated east and the vast, wild scrubland of the Chaco in the west. Distinctive for the strength of its indigenous Guarani heritage, Paraguay is one of the few countries where an indigenous language is spoken by most of the population alongside Spanish. Its history has been marked by long dictatorships and two devastating wars.
The region was home to the Guarani people when the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century and founded Asuncion, an early centre of colonisation, where Jesuit missionaries later established a remarkable network of self-governing indigenous missions. Paraguay became independent from Spain in 1811 and soon fell under a series of strong rulers, including long dictatorships. The country was devastated by the War of the Triple Alliance against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay in the 1860s, one of the deadliest conflicts in the history of the Americas, and later fought the Chaco War against Bolivia in the 1930s.
Paraguay is divided into two distinct regions by the Paraguay River. To the east lie fertile plains, rolling hills, and forests, where the great majority of the population lives and most farming takes place, watered by good rainfall. To the west stretches the Gran Chaco, a vast, sparsely inhabited wilderness of dry scrub forest, marsh, and savanna, hot and remote, covering more than half the country yet home to only a tiny fraction of its people. The mighty Parana and Paraguay rivers, which give the landlocked nation its access to the sea, are central to its geography.
The flag of Paraguay has three horizontal bands of red, white, and blue, and is unusual in the world for having different emblems on its two sides. The front bears the national coat of arms, a star within a wreath, while the reverse shows the seal of the treasury, a lion guarding a staff and liberty cap beneath the motto peace and justice. The red, white, and blue were inspired by the ideals of liberty and republican government. This two-sided design makes the Paraguayan flag distinctive among the flags of the world.
Paraguay is a predominantly Roman Catholic country, the deep legacy of Spanish colonisation and of the famous Jesuit missions that shaped its early history, with Catholicism woven into the culture, calendar, and national identity. In recent decades evangelical Protestant churches have grown, as elsewhere in the region. A distinctive feature of Paraguayan religious life is the blending of Catholic devotion with elements of Guarani belief and folk tradition, reflecting the country's strong indigenous heritage, so that popular faith often carries a character all its own.
Paraguayan cuisine reflects the country's Guarani and Spanish heritage and its agricultural produce, with maize, cassava, and beef at its heart. A national staple is chipa, a dense cheese bread made from cassava starch and maize, and sopa paraguaya, despite its name a savoury cornbread cake rather than a soup, is a beloved dish. Hearty stews, grilled beef, and dishes of cassava and maize feature throughout, and the cold herbal tea terere, made from yerba mate and drunk through a metal straw, is a constant companion of daily life, central to Paraguayan social custom.
Agriculture is the foundation of Paraguay's economy, favoured by the fertile lands of the eastern region. The country has become one of the world's major exporters of soybeans, grown on a vast scale, and a significant exporter of beef, raised on its extensive cattle ranches, along with maize, wheat, and other crops. Yerba mate, used for the national drink, is also cultivated. The mighty rivers power enormous hydroelectric dams, including the great Itaipu dam shared with Brazil, one of the largest in the world, making electricity another major export.
The Jesuit missions, the long isolationist dictatorship that followed independence, and above all the catastrophic War of the Triple Alliance, which killed a huge share of the population and nearly destroyed the nation, are defining chapters of Paraguay's history. The Chaco War against Bolivia followed in the twentieth century. Paraguay then endured one of the longest dictatorships in the Americas under Alfredo Stroessner, from 1954 to 1989, before returning to democracy. The building of the colossal Itaipu hydroelectric dam stands as a landmark of the modern era.
Paraguay has a population of around 7 million people, the great majority of mixed Spanish and Guarani descent, giving the nation a strong sense of a shared mestizo identity, along with indigenous communities and minorities including descendants of European and other immigrants, among them a notable Mennonite community in the Chaco. Paraguay is distinctive in that both Spanish and the indigenous Guarani are official languages, and most of the population speaks Guarani, often alongside Spanish. The people are concentrated in the eastern region, especially around the capital, Asuncion, on the Paraguay River.
