San Salvador - Demographics

Demographics

Spanish, or Castilian (as most people call it), is the language spoken by virtually all inhabitants. English is spoken more widely than in the past, due mainly to cultural influences from the United States, especially in entertainment. About 86% of the population is considered to be mestizo, and 12% fall under the category of white, or creole, having mostly Spanish ancestry, and a few of French or German descent. Other smaller ethnic groups in the white population are descendants of Swiss, Italians, Syrians, Turks, Jews (mostly Sephardic), and Christian Palestinians, who immigrated to escape persecution from the Muslim community of the West Bank. San Salvador has a population of 567,698 inhabitants, accounting for about 9.45% of the country's population, while the metropolitan area has 2,442,017 inhabitants, or 40.6% of the country's total population. The San Salvador metropolitan area is the second most populated metro area in Central America, surpassed only by the Guatemala City metropolitan area which has over 4 million inhabitants.