Paraguay

The country that lost most of its adult men in one war and has never entirely recovered. Jesuit missions organised Guarani communities in reductions from the seventeenth century until Spain expelled the order in 1767, an unusual experiment whose ruins are World Heritage sites. Independence came in 1811 with almost no fighting, and Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia then sealed the country off almost completely for twenty-six years, banning foreign trade and marriage between Europeans. His successors opened it and built railways and foundries. The War of the Triple Alliance from 1864 to 1870, fought against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay together, is by proportion the deadliest war in modern history: estimates suggest Paraguay lost between a half and two-thirds of its entire population and the great majority of its men. The Chaco War with Bolivia in the 1930s won territory at heavy cost. Alfredo Stroessner ruled from 1954 to 1989, one of the longest dictatorships in the region, sheltering Nazi fugitives and running Operation Condor's local arm. Guarani is an official language spoken by most of the population, uniquely in the Americas. Itaipu was long the largest hydroelectric dam on earth. Asuncion is the capital. The country has about six and a half million people and is landlocked. The Chaco covers its entire western half and holds a small fraction of the population. Terere, cold mate, is drunk constantly in the heat. Paraguay exports most of its electricity. Mennonite colonies farm large areas of the Chaco. Asuncion is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in South America.

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