Coast

The coastal region consists of the provinces to the West of the Andean range - , Esmeraldas

Esmeraldas Province

Esmeraldas is a province in northwestern Ecuador. The capital is Esmeraldas.The province is home to the Afro-Ecuadorian culture.- Cantons :The province is divided into 8 cantons...

, Guayas

Guayas Province

Guayas is a coastal province in Ecuador. It is bordered to the west by Manabí, Santa Elena, and the Pacific Ocean ; to the east by Los Ríos, Bolívar, Chimborazo, Cañar, and Azuay; to the north by Los Ríos and Bolívar; and to the south by El Oro and the Pacific Ocean.With a population of over 3...

, Los Ríos

Los Ríos Province

Los Ríos is a province in Ecuador. The capital is Babahoyo. The province was founded on September 30, 1948 under legistative decree. Its capital Babahoyo was founded October, 6, 1860...

, Manabí

Manabí Province

Manabí is a province in Ecuador. Its capital is Portoviejo. The province is named after the Manabí people.-Economy:Manabí's economy is based heavily on natural resources such as cacao, bananas, cotton, etc. It's industrial sector is based on Tuna canning, tobacco, and alcoholic beverage production...

, El Oro

El Oro Province

El Oro province is the southernmost of Ecuador's coastal provinces. It was named for its historically important gold production. Today it is one of the world's major exporters of bananas. The capital is Machala.-Geography:To the north and east the province has borders with the provinces Guayas,...

, Santa Elena. It is the country's most fertile and productive land, and is the seat of the large banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

 exportation plantations of the companies Dole

Dole Food Company

Dole Food Company, Inc. is an American-based agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Westlake Village, California. The company is the largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, operating with 74,300 full-time and seasonal employees who are responsible for over 300...

 and Chiquita

Chiquita

Chiquita can refer to:*Chiquita Brands International, a large produce company*Rio Chiquita, a river in Táchira, Venezuela*Chiquita , a song by Sam H. Stept*Chiquita , a book about the life of Cuban dwarf dancer and singer Espiridiona Cenda...

. This region is also where most of Ecuador's rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 crop is grown. The truly coastal provinces have active fisheries. The largest coastal city is Guayaquil

Guayaquil

Guayaquil , officially Santiago de Guayaquil , is the largest and the most populous city in Ecuador,with about 2.3 million inhabitants in the city and nearly 3.1 million in the metropolitan area, as well as that nation's main port...

.

Sierra

The sierra consists of the Andean and Interandean highland provinces - Azuay

Azuay Province

Azuay is a province of Ecuador, created 25 June 1824. It encompasses an area of . Its capital is Cuenca. It is located in the south center of Ecuador in the highlands. Its mountains reach above sea level in the national park of El Cajas....

, Cañar

Cañar Province

Cañar is a province in Ecuador. The capital is Azogues. At the time of census 2005 the province had a population of 221,045. It contains the 16th-century ruins of Ingapirca, the best-known Inca settlement in Ecuador and a product of their conquest of the indigenous Cañari.- Cantons :The province...

, Carchi

Carchi Province

- Economy :The provincial economy is based on industrial, and agriculture productions. Carchi produces food, drinks, tobacco, and dairy products. The agriculture sector produces potatoes, maize, etc. - Cantons :The province is divided into 6 cantons...

, Chimborazo

Chimborazo Province

Chimborazo is a province in Ecuador, located in the central Ecuadorian Andes, containing a section of Sangay National Park. The capital is Riobamba. The province contains Chimborazo , Ecuador's highest mountain.- Cantons :...

, Imbabura

Imbabura Province

Imbabura is a province in Ecuador. The capital is Ibarra. The people of the province speak Spanish and the Imbaburan Quechua language.Imbabura Volcano is located in the province. Best reached from the town of La Esperanza, the 4,609-meter-high mountain can be climbed in a single day.- Cantons...

, Loja

Loja Province

Loja Province is one of 24 provinces in Ecuador and shares its southern border on the west by El Oro Province, on the north by El Azuay, and on the east by Zamora-Chinchipe. Founded on its present site in 1548 by Captain Alonso de Mercadillo the site had been previously moved and rebuilt from La...

, Pichincha

Pichincha Province

Pichincha is a province of Ecuador located in the northern sierra region; its capital and largest city is Quito. It is bordered by Imbabura & Esmeraldas to the north, Cotopaxi & Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas to the south, Napo & Sucumbíos to the east, and Esmeraldas & Santo Domingo de los...

, and Tungurahua

Tungurahua Province

Tungurahua is one of the twenty-four provinces of Ecuador. Its capital is Ambato. The province takes its name from the Tungurahua volcano, which is located within the boundaries of the provinces.-Population:...

. This land contains most of Ecuador's volcanoes and all of its snow-capped peaks. Agriculture is focussed on the traditional crops of potato

Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...

, maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, and quinua

Quinua

Quinua can refer to* Quinoa , a species of goosefoot grown as an edible crop* Quinua, Peru, a small town in Huamanga Province...

 and the population is predominantly indigenous Kichua. The largest sierran city is Quito

Quito

San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...

.

Oriente

The oriente consists of the Amazon jungle provinces - Morona Santiago, Napo

Napo Province

Napo is a province in Ecuador. Its capital is Tena. The province contains the Napo River. The province is low developed without much industrial presence. The thick rainforest is home to many natives that remain isolated by preference, descendents of those who fled the Spanish invasion in the Andes,...

, Orellana

Orellana Province

Orellana is an inland province of Ecuador. The capital is Puerto Francisco de Orellana . It was created on July 30, 1998, from part of Napo Province....

, Pastaza

Pastaza Province

Pastaza is a province in the Oriente of Ecuador located in the eastern jungle. The capital is Puyo, founded on May 12, 1899 and which boasts 25,800 inhabitants...

, Sucumbíos

Sucumbíos Province

Sucumbíos is a province in northeast Ecuador. The capital and largest city is Nueva Loja . It is the fifth largest province in the country, with an area of 18,009 km²...

, and Zamora-Chinchipe

Zamora-Chinchipe Province

Zamora Chinchipe is a Province of the Republicof Ecuador, located at the southeastern end of the Amazon Basin, which shares borders with the Ecuadorian provinces of Azuay and Morona Santiago to the north, Loja and Azuay to the west, and with Peru to the east and south...

. This region is primarily made up of the huge Amazon national parks and indigenous intangible zones, which are vasts stretches of land set aside for the Amazon indigenous tribes to continue living traditionally. It is also the area with the largest reserves of petroleum

Petroleum

Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...

 in Ecuador, and parts of the upper Amazon here have been extensively exploited by petroleum companies. The population is primarily mixed indigenous Shuar

Shuar

The Shuar people are an indigenous people of Ecuador and Peru. They are members of the Jivaroan peoples, who are Amazonian tribes living at the headwaters of the Marañón River.-Name:...

, Huaorani

Huaorani

The Huaorani, Waorani or Waodani, also known as the Waos, are native Amerindians from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. The alternate name Auca is a pejorative exonym used by the neighboring Quechua Indians, and commonly adopted by...

 and Kichua, although there are numerous tribes in the deep jungle which are little-contacted. The largest city in the Oriente is probably Lago Agrio

Nueva Loja

Nueva Loja, is the capital of the province of Sucumbíos in Ecuador. It was founded in the 1960s as a base camp of Texaco. The official population estimate as of 1995 was 19,262 and as of 2009 its population is calculated to be 26,004....

 in Sucumbíos, although Macas

Macas

Macas is the capital of Morona Santiago province in southeastern Ecuador. The city is also the seat of the county Morona. Known as the "Emerald of the East" due to its location east of the Andes mountains, Macas lies in the Upano Valley overlooking the Upano river...

in Morona Santiago runs a close second.