Portal:Paraguay

The Paraguay Portal

Flag of the Paraguayan Republic

Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country located in the central region of South America. It borders Bolivia to the northwest and north, Brazil to the northeast and east, and Argentina to the southeast, south, and west. Paraguay has access to the Atlantic Ocean via the Paraná–Paraguay Waterway, a system of navigable channels shared by five countries. The country is governed as a unitary presidential republic composed of a capital district and seventeen departments. Its capital and largest city is Asunción. It dates its independence from Spain to 1811.

The indigenous Guaraní had been living in eastern Paraguay for at least a millennium before the arrival of Spanish conquistadores in 1524. The city of Asunción was founded in 1537 as the first capital of the Governorate of the Río de la Plata within the Spanish Empire. During the 17th century, Paraguay was the center of Jesuit missions, where the natives were converted to Christianity and introduced to European culture. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish territories in 1767, Paraguay increasingly became a peripheral colony.

Following independence from Spain in the early 19th century, Paraguay was ruled by a series of authoritarian governments. This period ended with the disastrous Triple Alliance War (1864–1870), during which the country lost half its prewar population and around 25–33% of its territory. Paraguay prevailed in another major conflict in the twentieth century, the Chaco War with Bolivia (1932-1935). It subsequently came under a succession of military dictators, culminating in the 35-year regime of Alfredo Stroessner. He was overthrown in 1989 by an internal military coup, marking the beginning of Paraguay's current democratic era.

Paraguay is a developing country, ranking 99th in the Human Development Index, with the seventh highest GDP (PPP) per capita in South America. As of 2024, it had one of the fastest growing economies in the Western Hemisphere, driven by beef and soybean exports, manufacturing, and construction. Paraguay is one of the world's leading exporters of hydroelectricity; the Itaipu Dam on the Paraná River border with Brazil is the third largest hydroelectric dam in the world in terms of produced energy. Paraguay is a founding member of Mercosur, the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the Lima Group. Additionally, the city of Luque, in metropolitan Asunción, is the seat of the South American Football Confederation. Ciudad del Este is Paraguay's second largest city and hosts many of the countries consulates-general.

The majority of Paraguay's 6 million people are mestizo, and Guarani culture remains widely influential; more than 90% of the population speak various dialects of the Guarani language alongside Spanish, the highest rate of fluency in an indigenous language in Latin America. In a 2014 Positive Experience Index based on global polling data, Paraguay ranked as the "world's happiest place", and in 2024, placed 24th in the progress rankings of the World Happiness Report. (Full article...)

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José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia y Velasco (6 January 1766 – 20 September 1840), also known as Doctor Francia or to Paraguayans of his time as Karai Guasu, was a lawyer, politician, statesman and the first dictator (1814–1840) of Paraguay following its 1811 independence from the Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. His official title was "Supreme and Perpetual Dictator of Paraguay", but he was popularly known as El Supremo.

He was the political leader of the faction that advocated for the full independence of Paraguay from the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and from the Empire of Brazil. Under his dictatorship, he isolated Paraguay from the external world. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images

The following are images from various Paraguay-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Paraguay
Image 2Main Catholic Chapel in Concepción, Paraguay (from Paraguay)
Image 3Drawing from a Paraguayan trench newspaper showing two Paraguayan women fighting a jaguar alone during the war. (from History of Paraguay)
Image 4A statue honoring Juan de Salazar y Espinoza in Asunción (from History of Paraguay)
Image 5Köppen climate classification (from Paraguay)
Image 6José Félix Estigarribia (from History of Paraguay)
Image 7Lithograph of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, a 19th-century ruler of Paraguay, wearing a dark cloak (from History of Paraguay)
Image 8Guaraní ceramics
Image 9Development of life expectancy (from Paraguay)
Image 10Jesuit reduction of Trinidad
Image 11Francisco Solano López (from Paraguay)
Image 12Higinio Morínigo (from History of Paraguay)
Image 13Gran Chaco was the site of the Chaco War (1932–35), in which Bolivia lost most of the disputed territory to Paraguay (from Paraguay)
Image 14A view of contemporary Asunción
Image 15Territorial disputes between Paraguay and its neighbors, 1864
Image 16
Eastern Paraguay (Paraneña)

Western Paraguay (Chaco)
(from Paraguay)
Image 17The Battle of Tuyutí, May 1866 (from Paraguay)
Image 18Palace of the López, now the Palace of the President (from History of Paraguay)
Image 19Locations of Jesuit reductions
Image 20Map of Paraguay and surrounding regions, 1756 (from History of Paraguay)
Image 21Alfredo Stroessner (from History of Paraguay)
Image 22Paraguayan marines at Ancon Marine Base (from Paraguay)
Image 23Ovecha Ragué Festival (from Paraguay)
Image 24Pedro Juan Caballero demands shared power from governor Velasco on the night of 14 May 1811
Image 25Estadio Defensores del Chaco (from Paraguay)
Image 26Political map of the region, 1864 (from Paraguay)
Image 27Chaco war map (from History of Paraguay)
Image 28Paraguayan soldiers in the Chaco
Image 29Allied warships in the port of Asunción, 1869
Image 30Eduardo Schaerer (from History of Paraguay)
Image 31A Paraguayan woman in a parade in the 2010s
Image 32José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, Paraguay's first dictator (from Paraguay)
Image 33Belgrano's campaign against Paraguay
Image 34Paraguay population density (people per km²) (from Paraguay)
Image 35Nacunday National Park, Southern Paraguay (from Paraguay)
Image 36A gathering in Caacupé (from Paraguay)
Image 37Itaipu Dam, a binational undertaking run by Brazil and Paraguay at the border between the two countries (from Paraguay)
Image 38As one of the most important resort towns in Paraguay, San Bernardino, which was founded by German settlers in the 19th century, has one of the highest purchasing power parities in the country. (from Paraguay)
Image 39López as a military leader, 1866 (from History of Paraguay)
Image 40Carlos Antonio López (from History of Paraguay)
Image 41Inauguration of former President Horacio Cartes, 15 August 2013 (from Paraguay)