El Salvador

El Salvador, which is Spanish for "the saviour" - or Jesus Christ - has been wracked by civil war and a succession of natural disasters.

The tiny country is both the most densely populated state on the mainland of the Americas and the most industrialized in Central America. However, social inequality and the fact that the country lies within a seismic zone define much of contemporary El Salvador.

During the 1980s, El Salvador was ravaged by a bitter civil war. This was the result of gross inequality between a small and wealthy elite, which dominated the government and the economy, and the overwhelming majority of the population, many of whom lived - and continue to live - in abject squalor. The war left around 70,000 people dead and caused damage worth $2bn, but it also precipitated important political reforms.

In 1992 a United Nations-brokered peace agreement ended the civil war, but no sooner had El Salvador begun to recover when it was hit by a series of natural disasters. The most notable of these were Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and earthquakes in 2001. These left at least 1,200 people dead and more than a million others homeless.

The economy is heavily dependent on the money sent home by Salvadorans living in the US. Poverty, civil war, natural disasters and their consequent dislocations have left their mark on El Salvador's society, which is among the most crime-ridden in the Americas.

Violent street gangs, known as "maras", have been described by Prime Minister Saca as a "regional problem that requires regional solutions". One of the most notorious groups was started in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants in the US.