Paraguay

Paraguay is a country in South America.

It has no sea. A big river runs through the middle. The capital city is called Asunción.

Paraguay is a landlocked country in the middle of South America. The Paraguay River flows from north to south through it, dividing the country into two very different parts: the Eastern Region and the Chaco in the west, which covers about two-thirds of the land.

Rivers trace most of Paraguay's borders and give it a route to the Atlantic Ocean. Its name is said to come from a Guaraní word meaning "river that gives birth to the sea." The capital, Asunción, is on the Paraguay River. About 7 million people lived in Paraguay in 2025.

Paraguay is a landlocked country of south-central South America. The Paraguay River, running north to south, divides it into the Región Oriental, about 160,000 km² and an extension of the Brazilian Plateau, and the Región Occidental or Chaco Boreal, more than 246,000 km² and about two-thirds of the country, part of the flat, largely featureless Gran Chaco. Four-fifths of the perimeter follows the Paraguay, Apa, Paraná and Pilcomayo rivers.

Britannica notes that the country's name is said to derive from a Guaraní word meaning "river that gives birth to the sea," and that rivers give access to the Atlantic and power the hydroelectric plants that make Paraguay one of the world's largest exporters of hydropower. It is also a major soybean producer. The World Bank put the population at 7,013,078 in 2025; about three-fifths of people live in towns and cities.

Asunción is the biggest city.

It is beside the Paraguay River. A giant dam on another river makes lots of electricity. Old mission buildings stand in the southeast.

Asunción, the capital and largest city, stands on the east bank of the Paraguay River. It takes its name from a stockade finished there on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1537, and it is home to the national library, the national archive, music schools and a symphony orchestra.

In the east, Ciudad del Este has grown quickly since the 1970s. Just north of it, on the Paraná River, Paraguay and Brazil built the Itaipú Dam, one of the largest dams in the world. In the southeast, two old Jesuit missions, Trinidad and Jesús, are a World Heritage Site.

Asunción, named for a stockade completed on the Feast of the Assumption (15 August) 1537, lies on the east bank of the Paraguay opposite the mouth of the Pilcomayo; its metropolitan area includes San Lorenzo, Luque and Fernando de la Mora. Ciudad del Este, Hernandarias and Puerto Presidente Franco in the far east have grown rapidly since the 1970s, and Encarnación and Concepción are other important centers.

The Itaipú Dam, built with Brazil on the Paraná about 16 km north of the Friendship Bridge at Ciudad del Este, is one of the largest dams in the world; its main gravity dam, completed in 1982, is 196 m high and 1,233 m long. The Yacyretá project with Argentina was established by a 1973 treaty. UNESCO lists the Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue, reminders of the missions of the 17th and 18th centuries and their social and economic initiatives.

The east of Paraguay has hills and lots of rain.

The west is flat, hot and dry. It is called the Chaco. Summers are very hot.

East of the Paraguay River the land rises gently toward hills and low mountains near Brazil, and it gets plenty of rain: about 1,400 to 1,650 millimeters a year. West of the river, the Chaco is flat and gets only about 760 millimeters, and few people live there.

Summers, from October to March, are hot, often 24 to 38 °C, and winters are mild, though cold southern winds can bring frost to the east. The whole country can suffer both floods and droughts. Paraguay has only two big lakes, Ypoá and Ypacaraí.

The Eastern Region rises from about 50 m in the southwest to hills of about 760 m in the east; the Amambay and Mbaracayú mountains form the watershed between the Paraguay and Paraná, and the Paraná Plateau north of Encarnación has the most fertile basaltic soils. The Chaco Boreal's soils are alluvial mud, clay and sand carried from the Bolivian highlands, and its slow rivers, such as the Pilcomayo, often drain into swamps or vanish in dry periods.

The east is mostly subtropical, south of the Tropic of Capricorn, and the Chaco mostly tropical. Summer temperatures range from 24 to 38 °C; winter ones from 16 to 24 °C, with extremes near −1 and 40 °C and frequent frost in the east. Rainfall falls from 1,650 mm in the southeast to 1,400 mm along the Paraguay and about 760 mm across the Chaco, heaviest from October to April; periodic floods and droughts cause severe crop losses.

Jaguars live in Paraguay's forests.

Anteaters and armadillos live there too. So do toucans and parrots. Piranhas swim in the rivers.

Paraguay's wildlife includes jaguars, ocelots, tapirs, anteaters, armadillos, monkeys, otters and marsh deer. In the Chaco lives the Chacoan peccary, a wild pig that scientists thought had died out until living ones were found in the early 1970s. The birdlife is spectacular, with toucans, parakeets, rheas, ibises, herons and eagles, and piranhas swim in the rivers.

The yerba maté tree grows throughout the country; its leaves are dried to make maté, a tea Paraguayans drink all year round. More than 500 kinds of hardwood trees have been found in Paraguay's forests.

Britannica lists marsh deer, monkeys, armadillos, anteaters, otters, wild boars, tapirs, jaguars, ocelots, bats and the coypu. A small Chaco reserve protects the Chacoan peccary, thought long extinct until living animals were found in the early 1970s. Caimans (especially the yacaré), parrots and macaws are threatened by illegal trade, and skins of armadillos, snakes and iguanas are exported. Birds include parakeets, rheas, ibises, herons, toucans, eagles and falcons; rivers hold many fish, including the piranha.

More than 500 hardwood species have been identified, including red quebracho, a source of tannin, and the bottle-trunked samuú; much of the Chaco is cactus and thorny scrub. Stands of Ilex paraguariensis grow throughout the country, and its dried leaves make maté. Purple passion fruit is native to Paraguay, southern Brazil and northern Argentina.

About 7 million people live in Paraguay.

Most people speak Guaraní. Many speak Spanish too. Friends share a bitter tea called tereré.

Most Paraguayans have both European and Guaraní ancestors, and they are proud of their Guaraní roots. Guaraní is spoken by nearly nine out of ten people, more than Spanish, which is unusual in Latin America, and at least half the people speak both. Since 1992 both have been official languages.

Corn is used in many dishes, such as sopa paraguaya, a pie made of corn, eggs and milk, and chipa, a bread flavored with cheese and egg. A favorite pastime is sharing tereré, a bitter tea, from a gourd or a carved cow horn. Football is the most popular sport.

Britannica describes one of South America's most homogeneous populations, mostly mestizo and proud of Guaraní descent; Indigenous peoples, about 2 percent, include the Mbyá, Aché and Pai-Tavyterá in the east and the Nivaklé, Ayoreo and others in the Chaco. Immigrants include some 300,000 Brazilians who arrived in the 1970s, about 30,000 German-speaking Mennonites (half in Chaco colonies), and Japanese and Korean communities. About nine-tenths of people are Roman Catholic.

Under the 1992 constitution Spanish and Guaraní are official; Guaraní is spoken by nearly nine-tenths of people but has been a language of school instruction only since 1996, while government and business use Spanish. Cuisine reflects Guaraní cooking: chipa, sopa paraguaya, beef and river fish; yerba maté is drunk year-round and tereré is shared from a guampa. José Asunción Flores invented the guaranía musical style, and the national football team, La Albirroja, won the Copa América in 1953 and 1979.