El Salvador

North AmericaCapital city: San SalvadorCapital metro: San SalvadorPrime Minister: Nayib BukelePresident: Nayib Bukele
2026 population
6.0M
Rank #117 globally
Area
21k km² (8k sq mi)
Metros tracked
3
53% of population in metros
Composite score
4.0
Rank #143 globally

population: 2024 census (2 May 2024) · indicators as of 2026-09-05 · 3 metros tracked

🗺️ Geography3 metros

El Salvador metro footprint, shaded by composite tier.

Loading map…
3 polygons

Hover for rank, click to open the metro page. Boundaries derived from Overture Maps administrative divisions; metros without source coverage are omitted.

🏙️ 3 tracked metros
3 metros
🗂️ Departments

14 entries listed under El Salvador. Click any to see its metros and footprint.

14 total
📋 At a glance
Official language
Spanish
Government
Representative democracy
Legislature
Legislative Assembly of El Salvador
Demonym
Salvadoran
Time zone
UTC−06:00
Driving side
Right
Calling code
+503
Internet TLD
.sv
ISO 3166
SV
Established
1841
Highest point
Cerro El Pital (2,730 m (8,957 ft))
National anthem
National anthem of El Salvador

Facts via Wikidata.

💹 Economy and developmentUpper middle income
Human Dev. Index
#130 / 191
0.678
UNDP · 2023
GDP
#107 / 193
$36.7B
World Bank · 2025
GDP per capita
#114 / 193
$5.8k
World Bank · 2025
GDP/capita (PPP)
#114 / 190
$14.1k
World Bank · 2025
GNI/capita (Atlas)
#114 / 192
$5.4k
World Bank · 2025
Life expectancy
#114 / 194
72.3 yrs
World Bank · 2024
Median age
27.0 yrs
UN WPP · 2023
Urban population
#56 / 194
76%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. growth
0.4%
World Bank · 2025
Pop. density
#28 / 193
305/km²
World Bank · 2023
Foreign-born
#164 / 193
0.7%
World Bank · 2024
Rule of law
#162 / 175
0.08
V-Dem · 2025
Gini index
#120 / 166
39.8
World Bank · 2023
Internet users
#127 / 193
66%
World Bank · 2024
Inflation
#18 / 185
0.3%
World Bank · 2025
CO₂ per capita
#68 / 192
1.4 t
Global Carbon Budget · 2024
Renewable electricity
#28 / 186
87%
Ember · 2025

Ranks are among sovereign countries with data; ★ marks a top-5% finish. Sources: World Bank Open Data and Our World in Data (UNDP, UN WPP, V-Dem, Global Carbon Budget, Ember, Energy Institute; CC BY 4.0). Each card credits its originating body. Renewable share is of electricity generation, not of primary energy. Each figure is the most recent year available.

Alliances & Organisations3 full memberships

Political & Economic

Regional

Subregional

Full memberDashed border = Candidate / ApplicantItalic = Dialogue / Observer

🏛️ Leadership History12 leaders · click to expand

marks a leader associated with atrocities or defiance of law, systemic subversion of democratic institutions, or a criminal conviction. Convictions arising from political persecution, and annulled convictions, are excluded. denotes a monarch. These are editorial designations, applied per entry rather than derived automatically.

Other

Nayib Bukele✦ Current

2019Present

President

Tenure: 7y 1m 2d

Nayib Bukele✦ Current

2019Present

Prime Minister

Tenure: 7y 1m 2d

Salvador Sánchez Cerén

20142019

President

Tenure: 5y 0d

Mauricio Funes

20092014

President

Tenure: 5y 0d

Antonio Saca

20042009

President

Tenure: 5y 0d

Francisco Flores

19992004

President

Tenure: 5y 0d

Republic of El Salvador

José Napoleón Duarte

19841999

President

Tenure: 15y 5m 0dbackbone

Óscar Osorio

19501984

President

Tenure: 34y 0dbackbone

⚠️ Maximiliano Hernández Martínez

19311950

President

Tenure: 19y 0dbackbone

Rafael Zaldívar

18761931

President

Tenure: 55y 0dbackbone

Gerardo Barrios

18591876

President

Tenure: 17y 0dbackbone

Juan Lindo

18411859

President

Tenure: 18y 0dbackbone
📈 Power over timeThe Power Atlas →
Today
Minor#137 · 0.0%
3%5%8%10%190019502000
Power (headline share)Latent (material mass)Recognised (standing)
El Salvador · share of world power, 1875–2026

The powerline is the headline share of world power, running from the state’s first ranked year (benchmark estimates with wide error bars before 1816). Latent power is material mass a state could mobilise (population, manpower, heavy industry). Recognised power is what the system actually treats it as (military spending, productive economy, reach, and status such as a Security Council seat or nuclear arsenal). When latent runs above recognised, a power is rising or under-rated; when recognised runs higher, it is punching above its weight or coasting on prestige. Material sub-indices run 1816 through 2016.

⚔️ Conflicts since 19456 interstate wars · click to expand
Combat deaths: 3,000+
Republic of Sonora,Nicaragua
Combat deaths:
Filibuster War1856–1857
Legitimistas (conservative party),Democráticos (liberal party),United States (naval support)
Combat deaths:
Malespín's War1844–1845
Combat deaths:

Bold = principal belligerent. Source: Wikipedia, “List of interstate wars since 1945.”

👥 Population over time
Population 2023
6.3m
#112 in the world
Since 1800
25×
from 248k
Peak
2023
at its largest now
Share of world
0.08%
0.03% in 1800
1.6m3.2m4.8m6.4m18001850190019502000
El Salvador · people, 1800–2023 · dashed to 2026 is projected

Our World in Data population (CC BY): UN WPP 2024 from 1950, Gapminder v7 1800-1949, HYDE 3.3 earlier; today's borders. Figures above are as of 2023, the last year that is estimated rather than forecast. The dashed tail to 2026 is a UN WPP medium-variant projection. It is drawn because the line should reach the present, and drawn differently because it has not happened yet: no rank, peak or share on this page uses it. Before 1950 the series is reconstruction rather than contemporaneous statistics, which is worth knowing when a country’s peak sits back there. The current population shown elsewhere on this page comes from the workbook and is unchanged by this. Note that people and share of world can move in opposite directions. A country can grow steadily and still become a smaller part of humanity, which is what happened to almost every rich country after 1960.

👥 To 2100

The UN’s probabilistic projection for El Salvador: the median with its 80% and 95% bands, the UN’s own high, low and zero-migration scenarios beside it. Not this site’s model; the site reads it and says what it implies.

Peak on the median
2047
6.7m on the UN median
2050
6.7m
95% band 4.9m to 9.2m
2100
5.1m
95% band 1.4m to 18.8m
2100 against 2025
0.80×
median falling from 2048
Deaths outnumber births
from 2058
on the UN medium path; migration decides the rest
4.9m9.9m14.8m19.8m1950197520002025205020752100

Tap or drag across the chart to read any year: the estimate to 2023, then the UN median, its bands and the scenarios.

estimateUN median80% and 95% bandshigh and low fertilityzero migration

What drives it

Births, deaths and net migration on the UN medium path, with fertility, life expectancy and median age, every decade from 1950.

1950
102k born · 46k died · -5k net migration
TFR 6.30 · life expectancy 44.2 · median age 17.2
1960
131k born · 50k died · -5k net migration
TFR 6.62 · life expectancy 48.3 · median age 16.1
1970
157k born · 56k died · -11k net migration
TFR 6.18 · life expectancy 51.4 · median age 15.5
1980
181k born · 69k died · -71k net migration
TFR 5.11 · life expectancy 48.6 · median age 16.4
1990
182k born · 42k died · -40k net migration
TFR 3.96 · life expectancy 62.0 · median age 17.7
2000
161k born · 39k died · -95k net migration
TFR 3.08 · life expectancy 67.7 · median age 20.2
2010
119k born · 44k died · -55k net migration
TFR 2.24 · life expectancy 70.9 · median age 22.6
2020
102k born · 53k died · -25k net migration
TFR 1.82 · life expectancy 70.2 · median age 25.7
Show all 16 decades
2030
93k born · 50k died · -23k net migration
TFR 1.71 · life expectancy 73.6 · median age 30.3
2040
81k born · 54k died · -18k net migration
TFR 1.67 · life expectancy 75.6 · median age 34.8
2050
72k born · 60k died · -15k net migration
TFR 1.66 · life expectancy 77.5 · median age 38.9
2060
64k born · 67k died · -14k net migration
TFR 1.64 · life expectancy 79.3 · median age 42.8
2070
56k born · 74k died · -11k net migration
TFR 1.64 · life expectancy 81.0 · median age 45.8
2080
50k born · 83k died · -9k net migration
TFR 1.63 · life expectancy 82.5 · median age 48.0
2090
45k born · 85k died · -7k net migration
TFR 1.62 · life expectancy 84.0 · median age 49.4
2100
40k born · 78k died · -5k net migration
TFR 1.62 · life expectancy 85.3 · median age 50.3

Every country to 2100 →

Source: United Nations, DESA, Population Division. World Population Prospects 2024. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 IGO. Estimates to 2023; projections 2024 to 2100, medium variant and probabilistic intervals. The UN revises every two years; this is the WPP 2024 revision.

🏆 National Teams

El Salvador on the international stage. Click a card for the full record.