Distillers Country guides / Ecuador
Ecuador
A one-page guide to Ecuador for the spirits trade: the country, its people, its economy and how it drinks.
At a glance
- Capital
- Quito
- Official languages
- Spanish (Kichwa, Shuar and others also official for indigenous peoples)
- Currency
- US dollar (USD)
- Time zone
- UTC-5 (mainland); UTC-6 (Galápagos)
- Area
- 256,370 km²
People
- Population
- 18.3 million (2025)
- Population growth
- 0.8% a year
- Living in towns and cities
- 63.4%
- Aged under 15
- 23.9%
- Aged 65 and over
- 8.6%
- Life expectancy
- 77.6 years
Economy
- GDP
- US$130.3 billion (2025)
- GDP per person
- US$7,125 (2025)
- Economic growth
- 3.73% (2025)
- Inflation
- 0.71% (2025)
Climate
Varied by altitude: Andean highlands are temperate and relatively dry, mountain valleys mild all year, and the Pacific coast is tropical to humid-subtropical with a severe rainy season.
Alcohol
- Alcohol is
- Legal
- Legal drinking age
- 18
- Alcohol per adult a year
- 2.54 litres of pure alcohol (2020)
- What people drink
- Beer 73%, wine 5%, spirits 22% (2022)
Sources: World Bank (population, economy and demographics), WHO Global Health Observatory (alcohol per adult and drinking mix); Wikipedia: Ecuador; World Bank Open Data API (population, area, GDP, growth, inflation); Our World in Data / WHO GHO alcohol per capita; Wikipedia: Legal drinking age; Euromonitor: Spirits in Ecuador (Sept 2026, listing). Figures are the latest each source publishes; the year is shown beside each one.