Nicaragua

The Pacific coast of Nicaragua was settled as a Spanish colony from Panama in the early 16th century. Independence from Spain was declared in 1821 and the country became an independent republic in 1838. Britain occupied the Caribbean Coast in the first half of the 19th century, but gradually ceded control of the region in subsequent decades. Violent opposition to governmental manipulation and corruption spread to all classes by 1978 and resulted in a short-lived civil war that brought the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to power in 1979. Nicaraguan aid to leftist rebels in El Salvador caused the US to sponsor anti-Sandinista contra guerrillas through much of the 1980s. Free elections in 1990, 1996, and 2001, saw the Sandinistas defeated, but voting in 2006 announced the return of former Sandinista President Daniel ORTEGA Saavedra. The 2008 municipal elections were characterized by widespread irregularities. Nicaragua's infrastructure and economy - hard hit by the earlier civil war and by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 - are slowly being rebuilt, but democratic institutions face new challenges under the ORTEGA administration.
==Economical characteristics==
* Currency: Córdoba (ISO code: NIO)
* Central bank discount rate: NA%
* Commercial banks lending rate: 13.17% (31 December 2008)
* Stock of money (M1): $507.5 million (31 December 2008)
* Quasi money (with M1 makes M2): $1.81 billion (31 December 2008)
===Statistics===
Statistic / Year 	1999 	2000 	2001 	2002 	2003 	2004 	2005 	2006 	2007 	2008
GDP (million USD)World Bank. "Nicaragua: GDP", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30. 	3 742 	3 936 	4 103 	4 026 	4 102 	4 467 	4 856 	5 301 	5 726 	6 592
Govt. debt (% of GDP)World Bank. "Nicaragua: government debt", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30. 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
Govt. revenue (% of GDP)World Bank. "Nicaragua: government revenue", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30. 	15.228	15.089	13.861	14.925	16.384	17.189	18.106	18.804	19.479	18.376
Govt. expenses (% of GDP)World Bank. "Nicaragua: government expenses", from World Bank Data. Referenced 2010-09-30.	16.456	16.469	18.704	15.831	17.065	16.768	17.862	19.239	19.049	19.600
Debt to revenue (years) 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	
==References==
Note: statistical data was rounded. Different sources may use different methodologies for their estimates. Debt to revenue is calculated by dividing the two variables from their original ('unrounded') values. It represents how long it would a government take to repay its entire debt if it used its whole revenue for this purpose.
==External links==
* Nicaragua on Wikipedia
* Central bank of Nicaragua
* Country profile (pdf) from the Enterprise Studies page (part of the The World Bank Group)
* Studies from the Library of Congress (1986-1998)
* BBC country profile
Category:Countries