101. El Salvador - Introduction

El Salvador  is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador. Important cultural and commercial centers for Central America on the whole include Santa Ana and San Miguel. El Salvador borders the Pacific Ocean on the south, and the countries of Guatemala to the west and Honduras to the north and east. Its easternmost region lies on the coast of the Gulf of Fonseca, opposite Nicaragua. As of 2009, El Salvador had a population of approximately 5,744,113 people, composed predominantly of Mestizos.
The colón was the official currency of El Salvador from 1892 to 2001, when it adopted the U.S. Dollar.

In 2010 El Salvador ranked in the top 10 among Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index and in the top 3 in Central America (behind Costa Rica and Panama), due in part to ongoing rapid industrialization.

Religion

There is diversity of religious and ethnic groups in El Salvador. The majority of the population are Christians, mostly Roman Catholics (52.5%); while Protestantism represents 27.6% of the population. Mormonism and Pentecostalism are two of the notable non–Catholic faiths in El Salvador. According to a survey in 2008, 52.6% of El Salvador's residents are Catholic and 27.9% are Protestant. Pentecostals and Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). A LDS temple was dedicated August 21, 2011 in San Salvador. Other religions (1.4%) are present as well – Islam, Judaism and Jehovah's Witnesses. Eleven percent of the population is not affiliated with any religious group, this includes people who believe in a god, but practice no religion, also atheists and agnostics.

Religious background in El Salvador
Religion			Percent
Roman Catholic			56.6%
Protestant–Evangelical			27.9%
None			11.4%
Mormon			1.4%
Other			1.4%
Jehovah's Witnesses			1.0%

Health

For the period 2005–2010, El Salvador had the third lowest birth rate in Central America, with 22.8 births per 1,000. However, during the same period, it has the highest death rate in Central America, 5.9 deaths per 1,000. According to the most recent United Nations survey, life expectancy for men was 68 years and 74 years for women. Healthy life expectancy was 57 for males and 62 for females in 2003