III.

Population

Asunción is Paraguay’s largest city, with 502,400 residents (1992 census), up from 454,881 in 1982. The population of the urban agglomeration is 1.6 million (2003), representing one-quarter of the nation’s total population. Most of the remainder of the nation’s people live within a semi-circular area extending north, east, and south of the city.

The majority of the population, of both Asunción and the country, is mestizo (of mixed Spanish and indigenous Guaraní ancestry). More than 90 percent of the population speaks both Spanish and the Guaraní language.