With only 21,476 square kilometers (8,260 square miles) of territory, El Salvador is Central America's smallest state, but its 6.3 million inhabitants make it the region's most densely populated nation. Traditionally, Salvadorans have professed Roman Catholicism, but evangelical Protestants constitute a growing minority. Indigenous groups gave up their Native American dress and customs following the 1932 peasant uprisings that the government brutally suppressed, but in 2004 more than 90 percent of Salvadorans were considered mestizos (persons of mixed European and Indian heritage). The national literacy rate of 80 percent is relatively high for Central America, although the rate is lower in rural areas.

El Salvador's traditional agro-export economy, which was heavily dependent on coffee, has diversified to the extent that commerce (27.2%), services (18.7%), and manufacturing (17.6%) employed nearly two-thirds of the workforce in the early twenty-first century. The country has positioned itself to be a leader in maquila manufacturing (the assembly of finished goods from...