May 15th: National Day of Paraguay

10 things you may not know about Paraguay:

Photo by Felipe Méndez. Monday Falls, Paraguay

1. Paraguay is a landlocked country in South America - but it still has a navy. In fact, it has the largest navy of any landlocked country. Novelist Augusto Roa Bastos described it as "an island surrounded on all sides by land". It is bordered by Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia, and is about the size of California.
2. Due to its central location in South America, it is sometimes referred to as Corazón de América ("Heart of America").
3. It hosted the first ever conference of landlocked nations in 2005, with over 30 countries attending.
4. P.J. O'Rourke once said, "Paraguay is nowhere and famous for nothing," but is said to have regretted his words after visiting the place.
5. The country is named for the Paraguay River, which flows through the middle of the country from North to South. The name of the river is from the Guarani language and means "river of many varieties".
6. The capital and largest city is Asunción. Almost a third of the population live there.
7. Paraguay is a bilingual country, with two official languages - Spanish, which is spoken by 92% of the people, and Guaraní, spoken by 98%.
8. The Guarani is the national currency.
9. Paraguay’s first ruler after they overthrew the Spanish was the dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia. His aim was to create a Utopian society with little contact with the outside world, and strict rules about who colonial citizens could marry - they could marry native Paraguayans, black people or mixed race people, but not each other. A result of this policy is that today, 95% of the population are mestizo (i.e. of combined European and Native American descent).
10. In 1864, the then dictator, Solano López, led the country into the Paraguayan War, a bloody conflict with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The population at the start of the war was estimated as being between 450,000 and 900,000, but at the end of it the population was a mere 220,000, only 28,000 of which were adult males. (in 2013 the population was 6,800,284.)