Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Population
With 6.1 million people spread across 130,000 sq km, Nicaragua is the second-least
densely populated country in Central America after Belize. The CIA World Factbook es-
timates that 69% of the population is
mestizo
(of mixed ancestry, usually Spanish and indi-
genous people), 17% white, 9% black and 5% indigenous. The most recent census reports
that just over 440,000 people describe themselves as indigenous: the Miskito (121,000),
Mayangna/Sumo (9800) and Garifuna (3300), all with some African heritage, occupy the
Caribbean coast alongside the Rama (4200). In the central and northern highlands, the Ca-
caopoeras and Matagalpas (15,200) may be Maya in origin, while the Chorotegas (46,000),
the Subtiavas (20,000) and the Nahoas (11,100) have similarities to the Aztecs.
European heritage is just as diverse. The Spanish settled the Pacific coast, while a wave
of German immigrants in the 1800s has left the northern highlands surprisingly
chele
(white, from
leche,
or milk). And many of those blue eyes you see on the Atlantic coast can
be traced back to British, French and Dutch pirates.
The original African immigrants were shipwrecked, escaped or freed slaves who began
arriving soon after the Spanish. Another wave of Creoles and West Indians arrived in the
late 1800s to work on banana and cacao plantations in the east. Mix all that together, sim-
mer for a few hundred years and you get an uncommonly good-looking people who con-
sider racism a bit silly.
Stunning Pearl Lagoon's handful of ethnic fishing villages are home to Miskito, Creole and
Garifuna people who have lived and traded with one another for over 300 years.
