Volcanoes and Lakes of El Salvador

Map

The main volcanoes

Source: Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: Santa Ana; Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: San Vicente; Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: San Miguel; CIA: The World Factbook, El Salvador, December 2012 (CIA Reading Room copy at the Internet Archive); Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: Izalco; Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: San Salvador; Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: Ilopango^{2,6,5,8,3,4,7}

Heights and eruptions from the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program; the height of San Miguel from the CIA World Factbook. The highest point of the country, Cerro El Pital at 2,730 m, is not a volcano.⁹

• Santa Ana: a collapse in the late Pleistocene sent a debris avalanche into the Pacific and formed the Acajutla Peninsula. Vents and cones line a 20 km fissure from near Chalchuapa to the south-east flank.
• Izalco: began growing in 1770 on the southern flank of Santa Ana. Its frequent eruptions until 1966 lit the night for ships, and it became known as the Lighthouse of the Pacific.
• San Salvador: the volcano rises west of the capital. Its Boquerón crater is 1.5 km wide and about 500 m deep; the 1917 eruption left a small cone on the crater floor.
• San Miguel: one of the most active volcanoes in the country, with eruptions recorded since the early 16th century and lava fields on its south-east side crossed by highways.

Source: Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: Santa Ana; Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: Izalco; Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: San Salvador; Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: San Miguel^2,3,4,5

Lakes and reservoirs

• Lake Ilopango fills an 8 by 11 km caldera immediately east of San Salvador. Its 5th-century eruption, the Tierra Blanca Joven, devastated early Maya cities; the Islas Quemadas in the lake formed in 1879 to 1880.
• Lake Coatepeque, in a caldera 18 km south of Santa Ana, covers 25.3 km², is up to 115 m deep and lies at 745 m. The Ministry of Environment declared it a protected natural reserve on 17 February 2023.
• Cerrón Grande, the reservoir also called Lake Suchitlán, is the largest body of fresh water in the country and a Ramsar wetland of 60,698 ha.
• Lake Güija, on the Guatemalan border in Santa Ana, and the Laguna de Olomega, in the east, are also Ramsar wetlands.

Source: Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program: Ilopango; El Diario de Hoy: the six main protected areas of El Salvador, 2025; Ramsar Convention: annotated list of wetlands of international importance, El Salvador^7,10,11

For investors

Volcanoes bring geothermal power, fertile coffee land and tourism, and they also bring risk. For a factory, a hotel or a home near a volcano, ask your engineer and insurer about volcanic and seismic hazards before you buy.