Nicaragua: population and cities
Population
Population
According to Countryaah website, Nicaragua has around 6.5 million people.
Ethnic composition
The residents of Nicaragua are made up of 70% mestizos, 17% white, 9% black, mulatto and zambos and 4% Indians. The residents are called “Nicas”.
Religion
93% of the population belongs to the Roman Catholic denomination and 5% are Protestants.
National languages
Spanish is the official language; Chibcha and sumo are spoken of by the indigenous people on the Mosquito Coast.
Capital and other cities
The capital of Nicaragua is Managua with around 1.7 million residents. According to Abbreviation Finder, NIC stands for Nicaragua in English. Click to see other meanings of this 3-letter acronym.
Other cities are:
- Léon with around 150,300 residents
- Chinandega with around 128,600 residents
- Masaya with around 123,500 residents
- Granada with around 92,700 residents
- Estelí with around 91,700 residents
- Tipitapa with around 90,000 residents
Nicaragua: geography
Area and national borders
Nicaragua covers a total area of 130,700 km². Check topmbadirectory for politics, flags, famous people, animals and plants of Nicaragua.
Thereof:
- ForestAround 35% of the country is forested.
- Meadows and pasturelandAround 43% of the land is used as meadows or pastureland
- Fields and fieldsAround 10% of the land is used as arable land or fields, especially for growing:coffee, bananas, sugar cane, cotton, rice, corn, tobacco, Indian sesame, soybeans and beans.
Nicaragua is home to the largest rainforest north of the Amazon with 10% of the world’s biodiversity. Depending on its altitude, the rainforest can be divided into:
– lowland rainforest up to a height of around 800 m
– mountain rainforest between a height of 800 and 1,500 m
– cloud forest with a height of over 1,500 m. In the country you can also find the tropical dry forest.
The country shares a border with the following two countries:
– Costa Rica with a length of 309 km
– Honduras with a length of 922 km.
Nicaragua has a sea coast with a total length of around 910 km – of which around 550 km to the Caribbean and 360 km to the Pacific.
Coastline
Nicaragua has a sea coast (Atlantic and Pacific) with a total length of around 910 km – of which around 550 km to the Caribbean and 360 km to the Pacific.
Longitude and latitude
Nicaragua extends over the following geographical latitude (abbreviation Δφ) and geographical longitude (abbreviation Δλ):
Δφ = from 11 ° to 15 ° north latitude Δλ = from 84 ° to 87 ° west longitude |
You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.
Legal time
For Nicaragua, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET), i.e. the time without summer time. A minus sign means that it is earlier there, a plus sign that it is later than CET:
Δ t (CET) = – 7 h |
Further and detailed explanations of the time can be found under Time zones, time.
Highest point of the sun in Managua
Managua is located at a northern latitude of around φ = 12 ° and thus in the middle of the tropics.
If the declination δ of the sun has the value of 12 ° N, and thus the image point of the sun is exactly above the city, the sun is perpendicular over Managua. This happens exactly twice a year, roughly 47 after March 21st and 47 days before September 21st (for details see position of the sun).
Attention
If the image point of the sun and thus the declination δ is north of the latitude of Managua, the sun is not in the south at noon, as in our latitudes, but in the north. In this case, the sun moves from east to north to west, where it then sets.
Mountains
Pico Mogotón
The highest mountain in the country is the Pico Mogotón with a height of 2,107 m.
Other high mountains are:
- Concepción volcano with a height of 1,610 m.
- Mombacho volcano with a height of 1,400 m.
- El Viejo with a height of 1,745 m.
- Momotombo with a height of 1,280 m.
- El Momotombito with a height of 850 m.
Rivers
Río Coco
The longest river in the country is Río Coco with a length of around 750 km.
Other rivers in the country are:
- Río Grande de Matagalpa with a length of around 330 km
- Río San Juan with a length of around 190 km
- El Río Escondido with a length of around 80 km.
Lakes
Lago de Nicaragua
The largest lake in Nicaragua is the Lago de Nicaragua (Lake Nicaragua) with an area of 8,264 km². Around 30,000 people live on this world’s largest volcanic island in a freshwater lake.
The lake is on the border with Costa Rica in the southwest of Nicaragua. There are about 400 islands and islets in the lake, of which Ometepe and Zapatera are the largest.
Lago de Managua
Another large lake is Lago de Managua with an area of around 1,053 km² – with a maximum depth of 24 m. The lake is located north of the capital Managua.
Islands
Isla Ometepe
The Isla Ometepe with an area of 270 km² is located in Lake Nicaragua. It is the largest island in the lake off the island of Zapatera. Originally there were two islands, but they were formed into one by the two volcanoes Concepción (1,610 m) and Maderas (1,294 m).
Cayos Miskitos
The Cayos Miskitos are an uninhabited group of islands that are located a little more than 40 km east of Nicaragua in the Caribbean. The archipelago consists of the 37 km² island “Cayo Major”, eleven smaller cays (= small sand or coral island) and numerous coral reefs and sandbanks. On the islands you can find the hawksbill sea turtle or the green turtle. Because of the coral reefs and mangrove forests, which are worth protecting, the islands were placed under nature protection in 1991.
Corn Islands, Isla del Maíz
The Corn Islands – Isla del Maíz – are in the Caribbean about 70 km from the mainland. They consist of two islands – the 10 km² Big Corn Island (Isla Grande del Maíz) and the 2.9 km² Little Corn Island.
Pacific and Caribbean
Pacific
Nicaragua borders the Pacific for 360 km in the west of the country.
The Pacific Ocean is also known as the Pacific, Pacific, or Great Ocean
Nicaragua borders with a length of about 360 km on the Pacific Ocean, the largest and deepest ocean in the world. It stretches between the Arctic, North, Central and South America as well as the Antarctic, Australia, Oceania and Asia. It has a gigantic area of 166.24 million km² (not including secondary seas) and therefore covers around 35% of the entire surface of the earth. The ocean, which is larger than all the continents combined, goes at its deepest point in the Mariana Trench down to 11,034 meters below sea level. km to the Pacific Ocean, the largest and deepest ocean in the world. It stretches between the Arctic, North, Central and South America as well as the Antarctic, Australia, Oceania and Asia. It has a gigantic area of 166.24 million km² (not including secondary seas) and therefore covers around 35% of the entire surface of the earth. The ocean,
Caribbean
Nicaragua also borders the Caribbean Sea – over a length of around 550 km.
The Caribbean is a marginal sea of the Atlantic and lies between the islands of the Caribbean and the American continent. In the west, Mexico and other Central American states border the Caribbean. In the south of Colombia and Venezuela. The border in the east and north form the following islands or archipelagos starting from Venezuela in a semi-circle to the “actual” Atlantic: Trinidad and Tabago, Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba. The shortest distance from Cuba to Key West/USA is around 165 km.
The deepest point in the Caribbean is the Cayman Rift between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands with a depth of 7,680 m. Together with the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean forms the “American Mediterranean”.