Cantons of Ecuador in the context of San Cristóbal Canton

The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, 900 km (560 mi) west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of slightly over 33,000 (2020). The province is divided into the cantons of San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz, and Isabela, the three most populated islands in the chain. The Galápagos are famous for their large number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin in the 1830s and inspired his theory of evolution by means of natural selection. All of these islands are protected as part of Ecuador's Galápagos National Park and Marine Reserve.

There is no firm evidence that Polynesians or the Indigenous peoples of South America reached the islands before their accidental discovery by Bishop Tomás de Berlanga in 1535. If some visitors did arrive, poor access to fresh water on the islands seems to have limited settlement. The Spanish Empire similarly ignored the islands, although during the Golden Age of Piracy various pirates used the Galápagos as a base for raiding Spanish shipping along the Peruvian coast. The goats and black and brown rats introduced during this period greatly damaged the existing ecosystems of several islands. British sailors were chiefly responsible for exploring and mapping the area. Darwin's voyage on HMS Beagle was part of an extensive British survey of the coasts of South America. Ecuador, which won its independence from Spain in 1822 and left Gran Colombia in 1830, formally occupied and claimed the islands on 12 February 1832 while the voyage was ongoing. José de Villamil, the founder of the Ecuadorian Navy, led the push to colonize and settle the islands, gradually supplanting the English names of the major islands with Spanish ones. The United States built the islands' first airport as a base to protect the western approaches of the Panama Canal in the 1930s. After World War II, its facilities were transferred to Ecuador. With the growing importance of ecotourism to the local economy, the airport modernized in the 2010s, using recycled materials for any expansion and shifting entirely to renewable energy sources to handle its roughly 300,000 visitors each year.

The Guayaquil Canton, officially the Municipality of Guayaquil, is a canton in the center of the Guayas Province in western Ecuador. The canton was named after its seat, the city of Guayaquil, the most populous city in Ecuador.

Cayambe is a canton in the northeast of the province of Pichincha, in northern Ecuador, South America. The canton is named after the Cayambe, a 5,800-meter-high snow-covered stratovolcano in the east of the canton. The main part of the canton occupies the eastern portion of the Pisque river basin and is surrounded by volcanoes.

The seat of the canton, also named after the volcano, is Cayambe. The economy of the canton is agricultural, based on raising cattle and producing dairy products and growing flowers for export in greenhouses, and also cereals for local consumption. The Swiss food company Nestlé and the Cayambean company Miraflores have dairy-product factories in the city of Cayambe.

The Parishes of Ecuador (Spanish: Parroquias) are the third-level administrative units of Ecuador. The Cantons of Ecuador are divided into parishes which are similar to municipalities or communes in many countries. There are over 1,500 parishes in Ecuador.

Sevilla Don Bosco is a canton in the Ecuadorian province of Morona Santiago. It is located about 240 kilometres (150 mi) south of Quito, the national capital. Established in 2024, it is Ecuador's newest canton.

La Concordia Canton is a canton of Ecuador. It shares borders with the cantons of El Carmen, Chone, Pedernales, Puerto Quito, Quinindé, and Santo Domingo, which are part of the provinces of Manabí, Pichincha, Esmeraldas, and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, respectively. Its capital is the town of La Concordia. Elections on whether to form part of one of those two provinces took place on February 5, 2012. The final resolution was to become part of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas Province, thus becoming the 2nd Canton of that province.

Santo Domingo de los Colorados or simply known as Santo Domingo, is the biggest canton in the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas Province, after La Concordia officially became part of the province on May 31, 2013. The canton is named after its seat, the town of Santo Domingo. The canton partially occupies the Toachi river basin. The Toachi river flows into the Daule river.