From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Acajutla is a seaport and municipality in Sonsonate Department, El Salvador. The town is located at 13°35′24″N 89°50′01″W on the Pacific Coast of Central America and is El Salvador's principal seaport from which a large portion of the nation's exports of coffee, sugar, and balsam are shipped. As a municipality, Acajutla is one of seventeen such districts in Sonsonate. As of 1992, the population of the town was 18,008, and of the municipality 47,678.
Nearby towns and villages to the main town include Hacienda Atalaya (0.5 nm), El Flor (1.7 nm), Hacienda San Antonio (1.7 nm) and Club Salinitas (3.6 nm).
Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, under the command of Hernan Cortés, had conquered Mexico and Guatemala before coming to the vicinity of Acajutla. There he met heavy resistance, but defeated the indigenous people in 1524 and conquered all of present-day El Salvador at the Battle of Acajutla.
Acajutla became an important colonial port for the Spanish Empire as part of the Kingdom of Guatemala, which was subordinate to the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Following the complete independence of El Salvador in 1838, the economy of the nation became increasinging dependent on the export of coffee. The rapid growth of this lucrative "cash crop" led to profound socio-economic changes in the region, and drew of the attention of foreign investors and the local plantation owners to Acajutla, where infrastructure development was seen as necessary to assure the transport of crops from the interior and the ability to load them efficiently aboard ships.
The 1855 completion of the Panama Railway across the Isthmus of Panama further added to the activity at the port of Acajutla. With a convenient means of transporting goods between the Caribbean and the Pacific, additional shipping lines were created to carry these goods up and down the Pacific coast to and from the western terminus of the railway. Acajutla was a regular port of call from which coffee and sugar were shipped to the East Coast of the United States and Europe.
On June 4, 1882, the first railway line in El Salvador began operations, with Sonsonate as the northern terminus and Acajutla as the southern terminus.
During the 1932 Salvadoran peasant uprising, two destroyers of the Royal Canadian Navy anchored off the shore of Acajutla at the request of the British Consul in El Salvador who feared for the safety of British nationals and assets. Armed Canadian sailors briefly landed against the wishes of the Salvadoran government and began preparing to continue on to San Salvador before the situation improved and the British no longer deemed an armed Canadian presence necessary.[1]
During the twelve-year Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992), the oil refinery at Acajutla (then the only operating refinery in El Salvador), was a target for anti-government rebels.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
El Salvador i/ɛl ˈsælvədɔr/ (Spanish: República de El Salvador, literally 'Republic of The Savior') is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Anaand San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America. El Salvador borders the Pacific Ocean on the west, and the countries of Guatemala to the north and Honduras to the east. Its eastern-most region lies on the coast of the Gulf of Fonseca, opposite Nicaragua. As of 2009, El Salvador had a population of approximately 5,744,113 people, composed predominantly of Mestizos (mixed biracials of Native American/European ancestry) and Whites/Caucasians.[1]
The colón was the official currency of El Salvador from 1892 to 2001, when it adopted the U.S. Dollar. In 2010 El Salvador ranked in the top 10 among Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index and in the top 3 in Central America (behind Costa Rica and Panama); because of this, the country is currently undergoing rapid industrialization.
El Salvador was explored and settled by the Spanish in the 16th century and remained a territory of Spain until 1821, when it joined Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua in a union named the Federal Republic of Central America. When this union dissolved in 1841, El Salvador maintained its own government until it joined Honduras and Nicaragua in 1896 to form the Greater Republic of Central America, which later dissolved in 1898. El Salvador's origins of human civilization date back to the Pipil people of Cuzcatlán, which means The Place of Precious Diamonds and Jewels. The people of El Salvador are variably referred to as Salvadoran or Salvadorian, while the term Cuzcatleco is commonly used to identify someone of Salvadoran heritage.