Nicaragua – Largest country in Central America

Nicaragua is a country which is officially the Republic of Nicaragua and the largest country in Central America. It has coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea in the east and the North Pacific Ocean towards the west with Costa Rica to the southeast together with Honduras to the northwest.

It has an area of 130,373 square km and has the largest freshwater body in Central America, which is Lago de Nicaragua or Cocibolca. Managua is the capital city of Nicaragua where around one quarter of the nation’s population reside in the capital city thus making it the second largest city and metropolitan location in Central America.

The physical geography of the country divides it in three major sections namely the Pacific lowlands, the wet cooler central highlands and the Caribbean lowlands. Towards the Pacific area of the country, are the two largest fresh water lakes. These are surrounded and extended towards the north western side along the rift valley of the Gulf of Fonseca with fertile lowland plains. The soil is highly rich with ash from nearby volcanoes of the central highlands.

Tourism Growth from 10% to 12%

In the early 16th century, Nicaragua was taken over by Spanish conquistadors and this civilization got somewhat destroyed by population losses due to infectious diseases, deportation and enslavement and was made a colony. The oldest colonial cities in the American continent was founded in Granada during which period Nicaragua became part of the Capitania General based in Guatemala.

With regards to tourism, Nicaragua has grown from 10% to 12% yearly where several tourists visit this destination for the richness and the beauty of the country. Nicaragua has been receiving a large number of tourists coming from all over the world due to its low cost of living, beaches, colonial cities, nightlife, eco-tourism and much more. One will find most of the tourists in the colonial cities of Granada and Leon, in the mountainous region of coffee farm of Matagalpa, the Pacific Coast, in the Caribbean coast in the Corn Islands and hiking on the volcanoes.

Culture with Strong Folklore

There is plenty to explore in Nicaragua and could be a budget paradise since Nicaragua is not too expensive due to which tourism in this country has increased over 300% in the last seven years. This has given rise to discotheques, bars, restaurants and hotels opening up at amazing speed in Granada, Matagalpa and Leon while San Juan del Sur has been facing a huge increase in surfing tourism with surfers from across the world as well as an increase in service tourism.

 Matagalpa on the other hand is also going through a process of its own surge of tourism with its booming shade grown and organic-eco-friendly coffee bean production. One will find an abundant supply of cloud forest with local lush estuaries where monkey, bird together with other exotic natural wildlife can be envisaged as well as protected nature reserves which are amazing.Their culture has strong folklore accompanied with religious tradition, music which has been influenced by European culture inclusive of American flavours.