Paraguay. Information.
PARAGUAY (officially the Republic of ), is a landlocked country in South America. It's bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Area - 406 752 sq.km. Population - 6,600,284 (2009) Capital - Asuncion. Indigenous peoples inhabited this area for thousands of years. Pre-Columbian society in the region which is now Paraguay consisted of semi-nomadic tribes at the time of Spanish encounter. These indigenous tribes belonged to five distinct language families, which was the basis of their major divisions. The first Europeans in the area were Spanish explorers in 1516. The Spanish explorer Juan de Salazar de Espinosa founded the settlement of Asuncion on 15 August 1537. The city eventually became the center of a Spanish colonial province of Paraguay, an attempt to create an autonomous Christian Indian nation. This was the center of the Jesuit missions and settlements in this part of South America in the eighteenth century, which included portions of Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. They developed Jesuit Reductions to bring Indian populations together at Spanish missions and protect them from virtual slavery by Spanish settlers, in addition to seeking their conversion to Christianity. The reducciones flourished in Eastern Paraguay for about 150 years, until the expulsion of the Jesuits by the Spanish Crown in 1767. Paraguay overthrew the local Spanish administration on 15 May 1811. Paraguay was ruled by various military officers under a new junta, until the secretary Carlos Antonio Lopez, De Francia’s nephew, declared himself dictator. Lopez modernized Paraguay and opened it up to foreign commerce. He developed a non-aggression pact with Argentina and declared independence from the state in 1842. After Lopez’s death in 1862, power was transferred to his eldest son, Francisco Solano Lopez. Solano Lopez led the nation into the Paraguayan War in 1864. Paraguay fought against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, and was overwhelmingly defeated in 1870 after five years of the bloodiest war in South America. Between 1904 and 1954, Paraguay had thirty-one presidents, most of whom were removed from office by force. In the 1930s, Paraguay fought the Chaco War with Bolivia, in part to try to reclaim some of the land lost. It defeated Bolivia and re-established sovereignty over the region called the Chaco. It forfeited additional territorial gains in the Mato Grosso as a price of peace. After World War II, politics became particularly unstable, with several political parties fighting for power in the late 1940s, which most notably brought about the Paraguayan civil war of 1947. A series of unstable governments ensued until the establishment, in 1954, of the stable regime of dictator Alfredo Stroessner, who remained in office for more than three decades, until 1989. Paraguay was modernized to some extent under Stroessner's regime, although his rule was marked by extensive abuses. Stroessner and the Colorado party ruled the country from 1954 to 1989. After his overthrow, the Colorado continued to dominate national politics until 2008. Currency : Guarani (PYG).
