Sitting on the equator between Colombia and Peru, Ecuador is the smallest of the Andean nations, covering an area no bigger than Nevada. For all its diminutive size, however, the country is packed with the most startling contrasts of scenery, where you can find yourself in steaming tropical rainforests amongst clouds of neon-coloured butterflies one day, and in a highland market beneath ice-capped volcanoes, mixing with scarlet-ponchoed indígenas the next. It's also a country of astounding biodiversity, boasting 1600 species of bird (more per area than any other South American country), and over 3500 species of orchid, to cite just two examples.

Nowhere is this spectacular and unique wildlife more apparent than in the Galápagos Islands, where Charles Darwin first developed his theories on evolution.

Geographically, Ecuador's mainland divides into three distinct regions. Running down its centre is the sierra, formed by the eastern and western chains of the Andes, joined by a series of high plateaux at around 2800m above sea level, which form the agricultural and indigenous heartland of Ecuador. East of the sierra, the Oriente is a large, sparsely populated area extending into the upper Amazon basin, much of it covered by dense tropical rainforest. West of the sierra, the coastal region is formed by a fertile alluvial plain, used for growing tropical crops, which borders the Pacific in a string of beaches, mangrove swamps, shrimp farms and ports.

All this provides a home to some fourteen million people, a largely mestizo (mixed) population, but with a strong indigenous component, particularly among the Quichua-speaking communities of the rural sierra, and the various ethnic groups of the Oriente and northern coast, where there's also a significant black population.