San Salvador: Centro Histórico

The main story here is that before the Salvadoran government started clamping down on crime a few years ago, it would have been a massive risk for me, a white tourist, to visit the capital’s historic center. 

In 2015, El Salvador was the most violent country in the world outside of a war zone. That year, there were 6,650 homicides, which is around 105 per every 100,000 people. Most of this violence was gang-related. The country’s two most notorious gangs are MS-13 and Barrio 18. Most of the homicides occurred in gang-related neighborhoods, which the historic center is not, but mugging, violent robberies, pickpocketing, and assaults here were still common.

In March of 2020, however, the central government began working to eradicate crime. They were able to take advantage of the Covid-era dynamics to make their move. With a national state of emergency in place and public fear high, they closed schools and non-essential businesses, imposed strict quarantine guidelines and curfews, and stationed high numbers of police and military personnel in public spaces. Within a month, there were reports of mass arrests of gang members, some justified as curfew or quarantine violations, and others just for alleged gang activity. In 2021, the government began easing Covid restrictions, but after a weekend in March 2022 that saw 87 murders, they declared a new state of emergency—this time specifically for the gang violence—and expanded the Covid-era detention model. Now, as of July 2025, this state of emergency (known in El Salvador as the “regimen of exception”) has been renewed 35 times, and over 88,000 people have been detained, which is around 1.8% of the country’s population.

These measures obviously haven’t come without controversy. Many human rights advocates have expressed concern about the situation. Police will arrest people based on suspicions—rather than actual proof—of gang connectivity, and the constitutional rights that would have presumed the detainees innocent until proven guilty and guaranteed them legal representation have been suspended. Meanwhile, crime rates are as low as they have ever been throughout the country. In comparison to 2015, the homicide rate is now less than two people per every 100,000. Also, Nayib Bukele, the country’s president who is the leader of the crime crackdown, has a 90% approval rating in the country. We talked to many Salvadorans in various places throughout my trip who remarked that 10 years ago they would not have been able to live the way they live and move through the country the way that they do now, and how grateful they were for the newfound sense of safety.

I don’t have an opinion on the matter. It’s not my place to have one. For me, it was just a really interesting time to visit El Salvador, and the Historic Center in San Salvador seemed like a microcosm of the country’s story over the past 5-10 years.

This is the original plaza of San Salvador—the “plaza mayor” when the Spanish first designed the city in 1545 according to their typical, plaza-centric, grid-based design. the plaza has changed names over the years and now is called the liberty, or freedom, plaza.

The statue below is called El Monumento a los Próceres, or “Monument to the Heroes.” The angel at the top is holding laurels, which are wreaths that symbolize victory, over the woman sitting at the base of the monument, who symbolizes El Salvador. Both figures face east, the direction from which the sun rises, as a symbol of new beginnings and expectations of good things to come.

The Internet told me that there would be increased police presence in the downtown area, and within 10 minutes of walking, here they were!

It seems that there are different layers of security agencies now throughout El Salvador, some preexisting, others new creations of Bukele’s Plan Control Territorial (the official name of the president’s plan to “take back” the country from the gangs). For example, there is the Policía Nacional Civil, the “traditional” agency whose officers carry weapons while patrolling and will physically detain people when necessary, operating in the same space as the newly created Seguridad del Centro Histórico, whose agents monitor the city center, but only with radios and batons and the duty of observing and reporting issues rather than intervening in them directly.

These guys here in the Plaza Libertad on this day were Policía Militar (blue uniforms) and Fuerzas Armadas (camoflauge uniforms). The Armed Forces is the country’s military institution that includes an army, navy, and air force. The Military Police is a police unit that operates within the army. Typically, they police internal military matters—not the street like the PNC do. But, I see them here on the street now! In the second picture below you can see their vehicles. It shows how the country is dedicating all of its available security resources to securing everyday safety for the public.

This plaza in the heart of the Historic Center is named after Gerardo Barrios, a veteran and the Salvadoran president from 1859-1863 who is known for his liberal reforms to modernize El Salvador. One of his main initiatives was promoting non-religious public education, which ultimately led to clashes with conservative factions within the country. In 1863, he was on the losing side of a civil war, and in 1865 he was executed.

This building used to be the seat of the central government and is now a museum.

For me, the most important detail about this state-of-the-art library is that it was a $54 million construction project built from 2022-2023 by Chinese construction firm Yanjian Group. It’s well documented that China is sponsoring construction projects around the world in developing countries, right?

Each floor was devoted to a different age group ascending by age—infants and toddlers on the first floor up to high schoolers and University students at the top. The floors had video gaming stations too, which was funny to me because I thought that libraries were for books and research. This must be “new librarying.”

If you live locally, this massive indoor-outdoor market is where you might come to get your groceries.