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San Salvador, capital of El Salvador: facts and figures

San Salvador is the capital of El Salvador. It has about 1,100,000 residents, which makes it the 110th most populous capital of the 172 in DailyGeo's atlas, and it sits 645 m above sea level. Its nearest neighbouring capital is Guatemala City, 177 km away.

Key figures

FigureValue
CountryEl Salvador
ContinentNorth America
City population1,100,000 residents
World rank by population110th of 172
Elevation645 m
Founded1525
Time zoneAmerica/El_Salvador
Coordinates13.69° N, 89.19° W
Country population6,365,503 residents
Country GDP36.7 billion US dollars
GDP per capita$5,767
Life expectancy72.3 years
Internet users66.5 %
Big Mac pricenot reported

Climate through the year

San Salvador averages 24.2 °C from December to February and 24.4 °C from June to August. October is the coldest month of the year and April the warmest, and the city receives 1,644 mm of precipitation in an average year.

Monthly means from ERA5 reanalysis, 2015 to 2024.
MonthMean temperature
January24.1 °C
February24.5 °C
March25.4 °C
April25.5 °C
May24.9 °C
June24.0 °C
July24.8 °C
August24.5 °C
September23.8 °C
October23.5 °C
November23.7 °C
December24.1 °C

Nearest capitals

Distances are great-circle distances between city centres, which is what the Capitals game measures when it tells you how far a guess was from the answer. Guatemala City is the closest capital to San Salvador.

CapitalCountryDistance
Guatemala CityGuatemala177 km
TegucigalpaHonduras220 km
ManaguaNicaragua365 km
BelmopanBelize398 km
San JoséCosta Rica696 km

How to remember it

Reading a figure once rarely fixes it in memory. Attach San Salvador to a place and a number you already know: it is 177 km from Guatemala City, and it is the 110th largest capital in the atlas. Then practise retrieving it. DailyGeo Capitals gives you one mystery capital a day with distance, direction, language and population clues, the memorising method explains the review schedule, and the capitals index lists all 172.

To see how El Salvador compares with every other country on figures like these, the richest countries by GDP per capita ranks them on geopolitix, a country-ranking game by the same maker as DailyGeo.

Sources

  • City population and coordinates: DailyGeo's own game data, the same figures the Capitals game plays with. Population follows the urban area rather than the commune, which is why no density is quoted.
  • Temperature and rainfall: ten-year means (2015 to 2024) computed from ERA5 reanalysis, retrieved through Open-Meteo. Hersbach, H., et al. (2020). The ERA5 global reanalysis. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.
  • Elevation: terrain height at the city's coordinates in the Copernicus DEM, read through Open-Meteo rather than taken from a curated claim.
  • Time zone: resolved from the same coordinates.
  • Country figures: the World Bank, latest reported year for each series: Country GDP, GDP per capita, Country population, Life expectancy, Internet users.
  • Founding date: Wikidata, earliest recorded founding claim.
  • This capital elsewhere: Wikipedia, UNdata, Wikidata.
  • Method and limits: How this data was collected explains how each figure was collected and what it does not cover.

The short answer

San Salvador is the capital of El Salvador, in North America, with about 1,100,000 residents, averaging 24.2 °C from December to February and 24.4 °C from June to August.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the capital of El Salvador?

San Salvador is the capital of El Salvador. It has about 1,100,000 residents and lies in North America.

How many people live in San Salvador?

About 1,100,000, which ranks San Salvador 110th of the 172 capitals in DailyGeo's atlas by city population.

What is the weather like in San Salvador?

San Salvador averages 24.2 °C from December to February and 24.4 °C from June to August, with 1,644 mm of precipitation a year. These are ten-year means from ERA5 reanalysis.

How expensive is San Salvador?

GDP per capita in the country is $5,767, the latest year the World Bank reports.

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