Paraguay

Discover Paraguay

Fun Foods

Empanadas, Chipa, Mbejú, Milanesa, and Dulce de Mamón

Every country has a flag. Paraguay has the only one in the world that's completely different on each side.

The front shows a gold star wrapped in green leaves. Flip it over and there's a lion guarding a red cap on a pole. No other nation does this.

Paraguay sits right in the middle of South America, with no coast and no beaches. It's one of only two landlocked countries on the whole continent, along with its neighbor Bolivia.

Most people here speak Guaraní, the language of the Indigenous people who lived in the region long before Europeans arrived. Paraguay is the only country in the Americas where an Indigenous language is spoken by most of the population.

Spanish settlers founded the capital, Asunción, in 1537. Paraguay won its independence from Spain in 1811.

Then came one of the saddest chapters in any country's history. From 1864 to 1870, Paraguay fought a war against three neighbors at once: Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

It was the deadliest war in South American history. By the end, more than half of all Paraguayans had died, and so many men were killed that women came to outnumber them several times over.

Paraguay slowly rebuilt. It fought another war in the 1930s against Bolivia, over a dry, empty region called the Chaco, and around 100,000 people died.

The country then spent most of the 20th century under military rulers. It finally became a democracy in 1989.

Today, Paraguay makes nearly all of its electricity from water. The giant Itaipú Dam on the Paraná River is one of the most powerful hydroelectric dams on Earth.

Near the city of Encarnación, you can explore the stone ruins of missions built by Catholic priests called Jesuits more than 300 years ago.

For food, chipa is a chewy cheese bread shaped like a bagel, sold on nearly every street corner. Sopa paraguaya isn't actually a soup; it's a cheesy cornbread you can slice.

And almost everyone carries a thermos of tereré, an ice-cold herbal tea that Paraguayans sip all day through a metal straw.