Santa Rita is a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
in the
Chalatenango department
Chalatenango () is a department of El Salvador, located in the northwest of the country. The capital is the city of Chalatenango. The Chalatenango Department encompasses 2,017 km² and contains more than 204,000 inhabitants. ''Las Matras ...
of
El Salvador and is one of the largest municipalities of Chalatenango. It has a shoreline on
Lake Suchitlán and is bordered by the municipalities of
Comalapa,
Dulce Nombre de María,
Concepción Quetzaltepeque,
El Paraíso, and
San Rafael.
History
Official reports record the town of Santa Rita being established in 1822, while according to Colonial Intendant
Antonio Gutiérrez y Ulloa, it was established in 1807.
Santa Rita was a part of
San Salvador from its establishment until 13 May 1833, after which it was transferred to
Chalatenango under the administration of
Tejutla until being returned to San Salvador on 21 October 1833.
In 1835, it was transferred to
Cuscatlán and was incorporated into
El Salvador in 1841.
On 1 November 1846, General
Francisco Malespín
Francisco Malespín Herrera (1806 – 25 November 1846) was a Salvadoran military officer and politician, elected as the president of El Salvador in 1844. He served from 7 February 1844 to 15 February 1845, when he was deposed by his vice pres ...
defeated Salvadoran soldiers under
Joaquín Peralta, who were loyal to President
Eugenio Aguilar, in battle in Santa Rita during
his war to retake the presidency.
Santa Ana transferred a final time to Chalatenango in 1855.
It was dissolved on 12 May 1902 and transferred to
Dulce Nombre de María on the executive decree of President
Tomás Regalado.
President
Pedro José Escalón
Pedro José Escalón (March 25, 1847 – September 6, 1923) was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador
Santa Ana () is the second largest city in El Salvador, after the capital of San Salvador. It is located 64 kilometers northwest of San Salvador ...
reestablished the municipality through an executive decree on 28 April 1903.
Another law was passed on 15 July 1919 that reinforced the existence of Santa Rita as separate from both Tejutla and Dulce Nombre de María.
On 17 March 1982, four
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
journalists and four guerrillas of the
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 ...
(FMLN) were
massacred
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
on the road from
El Paraíso to Santa Rita by the Atonal Battalion 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 ...
.
Geography
Santa Rita has an elevation of 1,257 feet or 383 meters and is 20.52 square miles or 53.14 square kilometers large.
According to
Global Forest Watch
Global Forest Watch (GFW) is an open-source web application to monitor global forests in near real-time. GFW is an initiative of the World Resources Institute (WRI), with partners including Google, USAID, the University of Maryland (UMD), Esri, V ...
, from 2001 to 2019, the municipality lost 310 hectares of tree cover, which was a decrease of 18%.
Population
Santa Rita had a population of 1,090 in 1890 and a population of 2,241 in 1956.
[Ministry of the Economy 1959, p. 216] In the 2007 census, Santa Rita had a population of 5,985 people, with only 400 or 6.7% living in urban areas and the remainder living in rural areas.
[Census 2008, p. 34] There were 1,498 occupied homes with an average of 6 people per household.
[Census 2008, p. 79] As of 2020, the municipality had a population of 7,367.
Administrative divisions
Santa Rita is divided into four cantons and three caserios:
*Barillas
*El Chilamate
*San Nicolás Piedras Gordas
**El Tronconal
**La Rastra
**Tasajera
*Tobías
Mayors of Santa Rita
The current mayor of Santa Rita is Ismael Romero Gutiérrez of the
Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA).
The following table lists all the elected mayors of Santa Rita since 1994.
See also
*
Dulce Nombre de María
References
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
External links
Official municipal Facebook page
{{Authority control
Municipalities of the Chalatenango Department