Paraguay

The Spanish founded Asunción in 1537, and it became the base from which much of southern South America was colonised. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Jesuit missionaries and Guaraní people built the "Reductions" — self-governing mission towns of farming, craft, music, and defence — until Spain expelled the Jesuits in 1767; the red-stone ruins of Trinidad and Jesús are now World Heritage sites. Paraguay declared independence in 1811 and was then ruled by a succession of strongmen: Dr Francia, who sealed the country off almost completely, and the López family, who modernised it and then led it into the War of the Triple Alliance of 1864–1870 against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

That war was the deadliest inter-state war in Latin American history. Paraguay lost perhaps half its population and most of its adult men, along with large territory, and recovery took generations. The Chaco War of 1932–1935 against Bolivia, fought over the Gran Chaco and hoped-for oil, Paraguay largely won, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives on both sides.

From 1954 to 1989 the country was ruled by Alfredo Stroessner, one of the longest dictatorships in the Americas, notorious for corruption, torture, sheltering Nazi fugitives, its role in the region's Operation Condor, and the vast Itaipú hydroelectric dam built with Brazil. A 1989 coup ended Stroessner's rule, and democracy has held since — dominated almost throughout by the Colorado Party — while Paraguay has become one of the world's biggest soybean and beef exporters.

Paraguayan culture is a genuine Spanish–Guaraní blend, and the survival of Guaraní as the everyday language of most people is its defining feature. Music is central: the light, portable Paraguayan harp and the guitar carry guaranias and polcas, and "Pájaro Campana" is one of the country's most famous folk songs. Ñandutí, a fine sun-shaped lace, and ao po'i embroidery are signature crafts.

Terere — cold yerba mate infused with water and herbs, drunk from a shared guampa through a metal straw — is a national ritual carried out all day, in the street and at work, especially in the heat. Football is the mass passion, and Catholicism runs deep, with the December pilgrimage to the Virgin of Caacupé, the country's largest sanctuary, the high point of the religious year.

The Chaco adds a different layer entirely: German-speaking Mennonite towns with their own institutions, and Indigenous peoples — Nivaclé, Enxet, Ayoreo, and others — some still living in voluntary isolation.

About six million people live in Paraguay, most of them in the fertile eastern region between the Paraguay and Paraná rivers, with Greater Asunción — a low, hot city on the river — holding around a third. The Gran Chaco, more than half the national territory, holds under four per cent of the population: cattle ranches, Mennonite dairy colonies, thorn scrub, and scattered Indigenous communities.

The economy runs on agribusiness — soybeans, beef, maize — and on cheap, abundant hydropower from the Itaipú and Yacyretá dams, much of which is sold to Brazil and Argentina rather than used at home. Paraguay is a low-tax, macroeconomically stable country, but with one of the world's most unequal distributions of land, widespread rural poverty and informal work, and a large cross-border trade economy centred on Ciudad del Este.

Deforestation of the Chaco has been among the fastest in the world.

Paraguayan cooking leans heavily on maize, cassava (mandioca), cheese, and beef. Sopa paraguaya, despite the name, is a moist cornbread with cheese and onion; chipá, a chewy cheese-bread ring made with cassava starch, is eaten everywhere, especially at Easter and from roadside and bus-window vendors; and chipa guasu is a softer corn-and-cheese bake.

Beef is grilled asado-style, and puchero and vori vori — also written bori-bori, a thick soup with corn-flour-and-cheese dumplings — fill out home cooking. Mandioca accompanies almost every meal in place of bread.

Terere is the constant drink, along with sugarcane juice and, on cold days, hot mate. Dulce de mamón (papaya) and a sweet corn pudding are typical desserts.

Paraguay is one of the least-visited countries in South America, which is part of its appeal. The Jesuit ruins of Trinidad and Jesús near Encarnación — roofless red-sandstone churches, plazas, and carved detail from the mission era — are the country's headline heritage sites.

Asunción has a walkable historic centre: the Panteón de los Héroes, the Cabildo, the riverfront Palacio de los López, faded belle-époque mansions, and the sprawling Mercado 4. Encarnación, remade with a beach promenade on the Paraná, is Paraguay's summer resort, and the Itaipú Dam offers tours of one of the largest power stations on Earth.

For nature, the eastern parks protect the last fragments of the Atlantic Forest — the Mbaracayú reserve and the Saltos del Monday waterfall near Ciudad del Este — while the Chaco holds Defensores del Chaco National Park and remote Pantanal-edge wetlands around Bahía Negra. The Franciscan towns of the "Circuito de Oro" and the lakeside potters' town of Areguá are easy trips from the capital.