🇪🇨 Guayaquil, officially Santiago de Guayaquil, is the largest city of Ecuador. It is also the nation's main port. The city is the capital of Guayas Province and the seat of Guayaquil canton. The city is located on the west bank of the Guayas River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Guayaquil.
1History Guayaquil was founded on July 25, 1538 by Spanish conqueror Francisco de Orellana in the location of a native village and given the name Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad de Santiago de Guayaquil ('Most Noble and Most Loyal City of Santiago of Guayaquil').
On April 20, 1687, Guayaquil was attacked and looted by English and French pirates under the command of George d'Hout (English) and Picard and Groniet (French). Of more than 260 pirates, 35 were killed and 46 were wounded; 75 defenders of the city died and more than 100 were wounded.
In 1709, the English captains Woodes Rogers, Etienne Courtney, and William Dampier, along with a crew of 110, looted Guayaquil and demanded ransom; however, they departed suddenly and without collecting the ransom after an epidemic of yellow fever broke out.
In colonial times Guayaquil was the chief Spanish shipyard in the Pacific, although some navigators considered that Valdivia (now in Chile) had better conditions. Guayaquil was a stopover point in the commerce between Asia and Latin America conducted by Philippines-based Manila galleons, which had links to Acapulco in Mexico and terminated with a node in Callao, Peru.
Enslavement in the region was centred on Guayaquil, where a variation of slavery known as jornal (daily payment) had developed. The owners were in charge but jornalado enslaved had some freedoms in exchange for paying their owners a fee (the jornal) every day. Slaves like María Chiquinquirá would work in people'so houses and lots of slaves worked alongside free workers in the shipyards. Chiquinquirá is a hero because she successfully went to court in 1794 to argue her freedom.
On October 9, 1820, almost without bloodshed, a group of civilians, supported by soldiers from the "Granaderos de Reserva" battalion quartered in Guayaquil, led by the Peruvian Colonel Gregorio Escobedo, overwhelmed the resistance of the Royalist guards and arrested the Spanish authorities. Guayaquil declared independence from Spain, becoming "Provincia Libre de Guayaquil", and José Joaquín de Olmedo was named Jefe Civil (Civilian Chief) of Guayaquil.
Departing from Guayaquil, General Antonio José de Sucre, sent by Simón Bolivar and supported by a division promised by José de San Martín, led the allied independence army in the Battle of Pichincha that sealed the independence of the Gran Colombia and also what would become the future Republic of Ecuador.
On July 26, 1822, generals José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar held a meeting in Guayaquil to plan how to the complete the independence of Perú and with it all of Spanish South America.
In 1829, the city was invaded by the Peruvian Army, which occupied it for seven months.
In 1860, the city was the site of the Battle of Guayaquil, the last of a series of military conflicts between the forces of the Provisional Government, led by Gabriel García Moreno and General Juan José Flores, and the forces of the Supreme Chief of Guayas, General Guillermo Franco, whose government was recognised as possessing sovereignty over the Ecuadorian territory by Peruvian president Ramón Castilla. Moreno's forces were victorious, countering Peruvian influence over Ecuador.
In 1896, large portions of the city were destroyed by a fire.
On July 8, 1898, the Guayaquil City Hall Muy Ilustre Municipalidad de Guayaquil officially recognised the anthem written by José Joaquín de Olmedo in 1821, with the music composed by Ana Villamil Ycaza in 1895, as the Himno al 9 de Octubre or Canción al Nueve de Octubre, most widely known now as the Himno a Guayaquil ('Guayaquil Anthem').
In 1922, workers in the city went on a general strike lasting three days, ending after at least 300 people were killed by military and police.
In 2020, the city was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Its medical and mortuary services were overwhelmed to the point where bodies lay in the streets. Almost 6,000 more deaths were recorded in the first two weeks of April than the average for the same period in other years.
1Economy Guayaquileños' main sources of income are formal and informal trade, business, agriculture and aquaculture. Most commerce consists of small and medium businesses, adding an important informal economy occupation that gives thousands of guayaquileños employment.
The Port of Guayaquil is Ecuador's most important commercial port; most international import and export merchandise passes through the Gulf of Guayaquil. As the largest city in the country, most industries are located either in the city or its peripheral areas.
Ongoing projects seek urban regeneration as a principal objective of the growth of the city's commercial districts, as the increase of capital produces income. These projects in the city driven by the recent mayors have achieved this goal after investing large sums of money. The current municipal administration aims to convert Guayaquil into a place for first-class international tourism and multinational businesses.
1Government A campaign of construction projects for the city began in the early 2000s to attract tourism, that included the "urban regeneration" plan which reconstructed the city's main tourist streets' sidewalks and upgraded the city's chaotic transit system with multiple infrastructure projects (speedways, bridges, overhead passages, tunnels, etc.).
In August 2006, the city's first rapid transit bus system, Metrovia, opened to provide a quicker, high-capacity service. One of the main projects was called Malecón 2000 [maleˈkon doz ˈmil], the renovation of the waterfront promenade (malecón) along the Guayas River. Another project was the creation of the Nuevo Parque Histórico, a park in a housing development area that is called Entre Ríos because it lies between the Daule and Babahoyo Rivers (which merge to form the Guayas River), in a mangrove wetland area. The park cost the city about US$7 million.
In 2013, the national government built two pedestrian bridges connecting downtown Guayaquil, Santay Island, and the town of Durán, to allow people to make ecotourism trips and return the same day.
1Geography Guayaquil is the nation's second largest city and the capital of Guayas Province. It is on the Guayas River about 60 km (40 mi) north of the Gulf of Guayaquil, near the Equator.
Guayaquil faces major earthquake threats due to its soil stratigraphy and location on the ring of fire and the south of the North-Andean subduction zone. The city can be easily damaged by earthquakes as its weak and compressible soil is composed of deep soft sediments over hard rocks and deposits in a brackish environment. Also, the city itself is strongly affected by the subduction of the active Ecuadorian margin, an intraplate region where active faults locate; and the Guayaquil-Babahoyo strike-slip fault system, formed as the North Andean Block drifts northward. The tsunami threat is caused by the nearby Gulf of Guayaquil which also is one of the major locations on the Earth where earthquakes tend to happen all the time. It has complex tectonic features such as the Posorja and the Jambeli –two major east–west trending detachment systems; the Puna-Santa Clara northeast-southwest trending fault system; and the Domito north-south trending fault system; that have developed since the Pleistocene times. Tsunami threats are only predicted for coastal farming zones, not the main populated areas.
1Sport There are two major association football clubs; the Barcelona Sporting Club and the Club Sport Emelec. Each club has its own stadium; the Estadio Monumental Banco Pichincha is the home of the "Barcelonistas" while the Estadio George Capwell is the home of the "Emelecistas". These two teams have a long history of rivalry in Guayaquil and when these two teams play against each other the game is called "El Clásico del Astillero".
The city is the birthplace of Francisco Segura Cano; and Andrés Gómez and Nicolás Lapentti, Ecuador's two most successful tennis players, now both retired. The "Abierto de Tenis Ciudad de Guayaquil" is a tennis tournament organised in Guayaquil by Gómez and Luis Morejon, and held annually in November.
Another major event in the city is the Guayaquil Marathon, which has been held every year on the first weekend of October since 2005. These race is certified by the (AIMS) Association of International Marathons and Distance Races.
The sports & Ecological Park called Parque Samanes de Guayaquil is a park with courts for soccer, tennis, volleyball, and basketball, two lakes, a soccer stadium and an amphi theatre for open air concerts and events. It is connected to a forest reserve with trails for cycling and walking, as well as installations for climbing and zip-lining.
1Universities Some of Guayaquil's main universities are: • Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral • Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo • University of Guayaquil • Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil • Universidad Laica Vicente Rocafuerte • Universidad Casa Grande • Universidad Tecnológica Ecotec • Universidad Santa María • Blue Hill College • Universidad Del Pacífico – Ecuador • Institute of Graphics Arts and Digital Science • Universidad Politécnica Salesiana
1Library Biblioteca Municipal de Guayaquil (Municipal Library of Guayaquil) serves as the public library of Guayaquil. The city has several universities, including the University of Guayaquil (founded in 1867), the Universidad Catolica de Santiago de Guayaquil, the Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral (ESPOL), and the Universidad de Especialidades Espiritu Santo.
1Transport Guayaquil is located along national Highway 40 and is near Highway 25.
Among Guayaquil's major trading points are the seaport, the largest in Ecuador and one of the biggest handlers of shipping on the shores of the Pacific; and José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport.
José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport, though using the same runways, had its passenger terminal completely rebuilt in 2006 and was renamed. The old passenger terminal is now a convention centre.
Guayaquil is served by a bus rapid transit system, Metrovia, which opened in 2006. The system has three lines and is supplemented by 35 feeder routes, carrying a total of 400,000 daily passengers.
The Empresa de Ferrocarriles Ecuatorianos offers tourist rail service to Quito from the neighboring city of Durán, Ecuador, located across the Guayas River from Guayaquil.
1Guayaquil is rated Gamma by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) which evaluates and ranks the relationships between world cities in the context of globalisation. Gamma level cities are cities that link smaller economic regions into the world economy.
Guayaquil is rated D by the Global Urban Competitiveness Report (GUCR) which evaluates and ranks world cities in the context of economic competitiveness. D cities are regional hub cities. Guayaquil was ranked #803 by the Nomad List which evaluates and ranks remote work hubs by cost, internet, fun and safety. Guayaquil has a population of over 2,350,915 people. Guayaquil also forms the centre of the wider Guayas Province which has a population of over 3,645,483 people. Guayaquil is ranked #951 for startups with a score of 0.109.
To set up a UBI Lab for Guayaquil see: https://www.ubilabnetwork.org Twitter: https://twitter.com/UBILabNetwork
Twin Towns, Sister Cities Guayaquil has links with:
🇨🇳 Changning, China 🇨🇱 Concepción, Chile 🇮🇹 Genoa, Italy 🇨🇱 Lo Barnechea, Chile 🇵🇪 Paita, Perú 🇨🇳 Qingpu District, China 🇨🇴 Santiago de Cali, Colombia 🇨🇳 Shanghai, China 🇨🇴 Tunja, Colombia 🇨🇱 Viña del Mar, Chile🇮🇩 Pangkal Pinang -2.133
🇮🇩 Pangkalpinang -2.133
🇪🇨 San Francisco de Milagro -2.129
🇮🇩 Palangka Raya -2.2
🇪🇨 Santa Elena -2.227
🇪🇨 La Libertad -2.233
🇷🇼 Nyamasheke -2.367
🇺🇸 Charleston -79.932
🇨🇦 Halton Hills -79.95
🇺🇸 Morgantown -79.95
🇺🇸 Pittsburgh -79.967
Locations Near: Guayaquil -79.8833,-2.18333
🇪🇨 Durán -79.817,-2.167 d: 7.6
🇪🇨 Milagro -79.594,-2.129 d: 32.8
🇪🇨 San Francisco de Milagro -79.594,-2.129 d: 32.8
🇪🇨 Daule -79.98,-1.864 d: 37.1
🇪🇨 Santa Elena -80.858,-2.227 d: 108.4
🇪🇨 Santa Ana -80.211,-1.261 d: 108.8
🇪🇨 La Libertad -80.9,-2.233 d: 113.1
Antipodal to: Guayaquil 100.117,2.183
🇮🇩 Padangsidempuan 99.266,1.367 d: 19884
🇮🇩 Limapuluh 99.417,3.167 d: 19880.9
🇮🇩 Pandan 98.833,1.694 d: 19862.4
🇮🇩 Raya 98.85,2.983 d: 19848.6
🇲🇾 Banting 101.5,2.817 d: 19846
🇲🇾 Teluk Datok 101.519,2.819 d: 19844
🇲🇾 Klang 101.435,2.996 d: 19843
🇲🇾 Shah Alam 101.523,3.002 d: 19834.3
🇲🇾 Cyberjaya 101.65,2.917 d: 19826.2
🇲🇾 Subang Jaya 101.583,3.05 d: 19825.8