Travel Guides

Travel to Europe

Destination Ideas

Travel Resources

Navigation

Quito (Ecuador) Travel Guide | Travel Photo Guide

San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito, is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains. With a population of approximately 1,397,698 according to the last census (2001), and, as estimated by the municipality, approximately 1,504,991 in 2005, Quito is the second most populous city in Ecuador, after Guayaquil. It is also the capital of the Pichincha province and the seat of Quito Canton, which since the 1993-12-27 passage of the municipal law known as "Ley de Régimen para el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito" is also known as Metropolitan District of Quito. The canton had 1,842,201 residents in the 2001 national census. In 2008 the city was designated as the headquarters of the Union of South American Nations.

The elevation of the city's central square (Plaza de La Independencia or Plaza Grande) is 2,850 m (about 9,350 ft), making Quito the second-highest administrative capital city in the world (after La Paz, Bolivia), and the highest legal capital (ahead of Sucre, also in Bolivia, and Bogotá, Colombia).

Quito is located about 25 km (15 miles) south of the equator. A monument and museum marking the general location of the equator is known locally as la mitad del mundo (the middle of the world), to avoid confusion, as the word ecuador is Spanish for equator. Text Source : Text Source :http://wikitravel.org/en/Quito

Fruit merchant
Fruit merchant

Market of Quito
Market of Quito

Cemetary
Cemetary

Quito
Quito

Independencia
Tancat, Catalan tapas bar

Colectivo
Colectivo

Plaza San Francisco
Plaza San Francisco

The Quito Virgin
The Quito Virgin

Ecuator line
Ecuator line

Pichincha
Pichincha

San Francisco
Fruit merchant

People
People

Campañia
Campañia

Plaza de Independencia
Plaza de Independencia