Country · Americas
Nicaragua
Republic of Nicaragua
Nicaragua is a country in Central America. Its capital city is Managua. About 6.5 million people live there, in an area of 130 373 square kilometres.
Picture credit: Viktor Pinchuk / Виктор Пинчук (CC BY-SA 4.0) · SORIANONEARTH (CC BY-SA 3.0) · randreu (CC BY 3.0) · Jairo Cajina (CC BY-SA 4.0) · randreu (CC BY 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Nicaragua?
Nicaragua lies in Central America, on the continent of Americas.
It sits in the northern half of the world, roughly 1 447 km from the equator.
Its coastline is about 910 km long.
It shares a border with 2 countries: Costa Rica and Honduras.
How big is Nicaragua?
Nicaragua covers 130 373 square kilometres.
That is about 3.2 times the size of Switzerland.
Among the world's countries that makes it the 96th largest.
If everybody spread out evenly, there would be about 49.6 people on every square kilometre.
Who lives in Nicaragua?
About 6.5 million people live in Nicaragua.
That is the 108th biggest population in the world.
People here speak Spanish.
They pay with the Nicaraguan córdoba (C$).
On average, people born here can expect to live about 69 years.
The land of Nicaragua
The land in Nicaragua sits on average 298 metres above sea level.
Its coast runs for about 910 km. Walking it end to end, at twenty kilometres a day, would take roughly 46 days.
It lies inside the tropics, which is the single biggest reason its weather is the way it is.
What makes Nicaragua different?
A dish the country is known for: Gallo pinto.
Websites from here often end in .ni.
Nicaragua and the rest of the world
Out of every thousand people alive on Earth, about 0.9 live in Nicaragua.
It takes up about 0.1 % of all the land that countries stand on.
Within Americas it is the 16th largest of 35 countries, and the 18th most populated.
That is close to the world average of roughly 60 people per square kilometre.
Nicaragua and its neighbours
Nicaragua is about 1.2 times the size of Honduras, its largest neighbour.
Honduras has more people: 9.6 million against 6.5 million.
Nature and animals
Of the animals on this site, 2 live wild in Nicaragua: Brown-throated sloth and Red-eyed tree frog.
Photographs from Wikimedia Commons under free licences — every credit is on the page itself and in the picture credits.
Questions children ask
What is the capital of Nicaragua?
The capital of Nicaragua is Managua. It is the city where the country's government works from.
How many people live in Nicaragua?
About 6.5 million people live in Nicaragua, which makes it the 108th most populated country in the world. (Source: World Bank, 2018.)
Which countries border Nicaragua?
Nicaragua borders Costa Rica and Honduras — 2 neighbours in total.
How big is Nicaragua?
Nicaragua covers 130 373 square kilometres, making it the 96th largest country in the world. That is about 3.2 times the size of Switzerland.
Which continent is Nicaragua in?
Nicaragua is in Americas, in the part called Central America.
Where these numbers come from
Borders and outlines: Natural Earth. Names, capitals, areas, languages and currencies: ISO 3166 data (world-countries). Population: World Bank, 2018. Every derived figure on this page (ranks, density, distance from the equator) is calculated from those values.
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