Sonsonate - City of El Salvador

Sonsonate, the capital of the department of Sonsonate, El Salvador; on the river Sensunapan and the railway from San Salvador to the Pacific port of Acajutla, 21 km south. Pop.

Sonsonate was the centre of a rich agricultural district, and one of the busiest manufacturing towns in the republic. It produced cotton cloth, pottery, mats and baskets, boots and shoes, sugar, starch, cigars and spirits. Through Acajutla it exported coffee and sugar, and imported grain for distribution to all parts of the country.

The most cultivated agricultural products are the basic grains, coffee, cotton, sugar cane, coconut, fruits, balsam trees, palm, tulle, and orchard plants.

It is located at 65 Kilometers of San Salvador and at a height of 225 meters. It is in the margins of Centzunat, Sensunapan, or Grande River of Sonsonate. It is joined to the capital and Port of Acajutla through modern highways, as well as to Santa Ana and Ahuachapán.

In the park “Rafael Campos”, a column with the marble bust of the ex-president Rafael Campos was erected in 1913. He was called the “Salvadoran Aristides”. During his administration, the first map of El Salvador was raised. The national army, under the command of General Ramón Belloso, fought and defeated the filibusters of General William Walker in the battles of Masaya and Granada, in Nicaragua.

Sonsonate is a corruption of Centzunat, slang in pipil that means: Big River and literally “Four hundred waters”.

Among the most remarkable manufacturing industries are those of dairy products, panela, sugar, tiles and bricks of mud, clothes, footwear, candles, soaps, and leather articles. Coconut trees are plentiful in the suburbs and thus the epithet of “The city of the palms”, name with which is known poetically. Their average annual temperature is of 25 0C.