The geology, flora and fauna of Salvador are described in the article CENTRAL AMERICA.
As noted above, Salvador's population (1930) was
a large proportion of the people living on farms, and the number of landowners including a very large number of small landholders; these small farmers raise coffee and sugar which is milled in larger properties or centrals, which buy the crop or prepare it for the market on a percentage basis. In 1887 the population was put at 664,513; in 1901 it was 1,006,848; in 1906, 1,116,253. The chief cities are San Salvador, the capital (89,281), Santa Ana (41,210), San Miguel (17,569), San Vicente (10,964), Sonsonate
Santa Tecla (20,938), La Union
the principal seaport.
The people of Salvador are made up of white, chiefly Spanish, stock (about ro%) ; mixed blood, Spanish and Indian (about 50%) ; and Indian (40%). There are very few negroes. The rulers are chiefly of the white group, and this strain is jealously guarded; the large coffee owners are whites of Spanish colonial origin, there being some foreigners, but no such proportion of German-owned coffee estates as in Guatemala, for instance. The Indians of Salvador constitute an important element of the population, being industrious, efficient and commanding, as a class, higher wages on the plantations than the mixed bloods of similar social groups; the Indian villages are still largely segregated by their own choice, but they have their own little coffee farms and work at wages, with their families, for the white owners of the larger estates.
Salvador aspires to become an industrial country, and the dense population, the character of the people and the geographical location tend to make this a likeli hood of the future, when indeed electric power may possibly be developed in industrial quantity from such sources as Lake Ilopango, although the danger of earthquakes which would destroy reservoirs makes capital timorous in this direction. Meanwhile, although there are local manufacturing industries, Salvador is an agricultural State chiefly, and produces coffee, sugar and special ities in quantities which make it an important factor, in proportion to its size, in world markets. Coffee is the chief crop, the exports amounting to about 100,000,000 lb. annually, more than 8o% of
the exports. Sugar is second, with exports of approximately 21,000 tons. Maize, which is shipped to neighbouring Central American countries, including Costa Rica and Nicaragua, is third. Beans are a similar food crop, and some wheat is also exported. Of the specialities, balsam of Peru and indigo are the chief, and both are important. Balsam, a healing drug (q.v.), is produced solely in Salvador, the misnomer coming down from early Spanish days, when Peru was best known. There is some mining, about 200 mining establishments being listed as in operation, but the total exports, chiefly gold, reach only about £250,000 annually.
With 8o% of the production of the country devoted to coffee, the exports and indeed the imports depend largely on the crop and its price, and in recent years both have been excellent; hence Salvador has prospered greatly. The following data show the tendencies :— Salvador now exports much of her coffee by rail through Guate mala and Puerto Barrios, but the bulk still travels abroad through the three seaports, Acajutla, the terminus of the old Salvador railway, a British property; La Libertad, the port of San Salvador, but not greatly used for freight, and La Union, the modern port at the southern terminus of the International Railways of Central America. The coasting vessels that touch the Panama canal and northward make one or more of these stops in Salvador.
The interior is well supplied with railways and with highways. The Salvador railway was opened in 1882, and the International Railways finished their Salvador line to La Union in 1922 and connected up with the Guatemala line in 1929. There is a short railway to Santa Tecla, near San Salvador, a line which is projected to be continued to La Libertad at some future date. The highways have been well developed, the older road, of dirt, having been built and kept up for many years, and in recent years, paved city streets and properly graded and sur faced highways having opened up the interior. The highway to La Libertad from San Salvador has been built and improved twice since it was first projected.