Jasmine Directory

Paraguay is centrally located in South America, sharing borders with Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. Paraguay is a country rich in natural resources. Its home to the world's largest drinking water reservoir, and is not only the world's fifth largest producer of soy beans, it also produces world renown beef. Despite all of these resources, Paraguay is one of South America's poorest countries. In the capitol city of Asuncion its common place to see beggars on street corners.

Paraguay's culture can be explained by its history. Although it was colonized by the Spanish for over three hundred years, it managed to keep most of its culture. To this day Spanish is still one of the countries official languages and people with Spanish heritage make up more than 80% of the countries population. Historically, Paraguay was a very wealthy country. After the War of the Triple Alliance in 1865, this all changed.

Paraguay lost more than sixty percent of its adult males and much of its territory, including the parts that touched the ocean.
Modern day Paraguay is a tumultuous place.

After World War II, many European immigrants migrated to Paraguay and simply never left. Its all too common to find pockets of Germans, Russians, Italians and others who call Paraguay their home. That said, as it tries to move to a more modern market, all of Paraguay save the capitol is lagging behind. Only time will tell how it will fair in the future.