San Vicente () is a department of El Salvador in the center of the country. The capital is San Vicente. On October 4, 1834, San Vicente City of Austria and Lorenzana (Ciudad de San Vicente de Austria y Lorenzana) was made the capital of State of El Salvador during the Federal Republic of Central America. In 1840, it was no longer the capital of the State of El Salvador, but it continues to be the capital of the department. The department was created on June 12, 1824. The San Vicente department is and has a population in excess of 174,500. The forest Bosque La Joya is found in San Vincente.

Municipalities

# Apastepeque # Guadalupe # San Cayetano Istepeque # San Esteban Catarina #

San Ildefonso San Ildefonso (), La Granja (), or La Granja de San Ildefonso, is a town and municipality in the Province of Segovia, in the Castile and León autonomous region of central Spain. It is located in the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mounta ...

# San Lorenzo # San Sebastián # San Vicente # Santa Clara #

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 ( Distrito Nacional) , webs ...

# Tecoluca # Tepetitán # Verapaz

History

During the

Salvadoran Civil War The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front The Farabundo Ma ...

, the region was considered a stronghold for the rebel

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) is a left-wing political party in El Salvador. The FMLN was formed as an umbrella group on 10 October 1980, from five leftist gu ...

. In August 1982, the

Salvadoran Army The Salvadoran Army (Spanish: ''Ejército Salvadoreño'') is the land branch and largest of the Armed Forces of El Salvador. Conflicts The Football War The Football War (also called The Soccer War or 100-hours War) was a term coined by Po ...

began a campaign in the area, moving in with ground troops after several days of bombing. On August 21–22, the

Atlácatl Battalion The Atlácatl Battalion ( Spanish: ) was a rapid-response, counter-insurgency battalion of the Salvadoran Army created in 1981. It was implicated in some of the most infamous massacres of the Salvadoran Civil War, and as a result, it was disband ...

surprised a group of hundreds of refugees at El Calabozo beside the

Amatitán river Amatitán is the head of a municipality in the Mexican state of Jalisco, and is home to one of the world's largest tequila distilleries. It is the location of “La Hacienda de San José del Refugio”, a distillery which makes “ Tequila Herr ...

, opening fire at close range. More than two hundred are reported to have died, among them infants and elderly, leading the incident to be called

El Calabozo massacre The El Calabozo massacre was an incident during the Salvadoran Civil War on 21–22 August 1982, in which more than two hundred people, including children and elderly, were reportedly killed at El Calabozo by the Atlácatl Battalion of the Salv ...

Volcano of San Vicente

One of the most imposing volcanoes of the coastal chain is the Chinchontepec, or volcano of San Vicente, located in the confines of the department of the same name. Its almost perfect cone, as sugar pile, finishes off in two hill tops and this peculiarity gives origin to its nahuatl name “Hill of two tits”. The oriental summit was called “volcano of Zacatecoluca”, is the highest one at 2,173 meters over sea level and it presents a well formed and conserved crater whose bottom at 1,990 meters has a swamp in the stormy season. The western summit, smaller at 2,083 meters, exhibits an open crater to the east. Dense vegetation covers both summits. To the northeast, at 820 meters in a ravine of 180 meters of longitude, there are fumaroles; fountains of clear and muddy water or small volcanoes of mud. The most important is to the south of the geological fissure. These groups of phenomenon of geological action are called “infiernillos”. In them, the water is at temperatures of 60 °C to 98 °C and they contain great quantities of water vapor, sulfuric acid, sulfuric hydrogen, and carbonic acid. The Valley of Jiboa expands to the northeast and north of the western summit. It is also called Valley of Millers. Chichontepec Volcano has also in the midst of the valley, an important archaeological site called "Tehuacan." This was a place of adoration to the Aztec gods, and the found structures demonstrates the type of hierarchical organization their tribes had.

Products

San Vicente is known for the variety of typical sweets made with

coconut preserve The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or ...

s, nance, and

tamarindo Tamarind (''Tamarindus indica'') is a leguminous A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agricultur ...

. In San Esteban Catarina, sweets of panela and pilon sugar are manufactured. San Sebastian is known for its textile production.

References

{{Authority control Departments of El Salvador States and territories established in 1824