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Updates: 

I added the 2010 census results.

Valentin Arzoumanian has discovered that Ecuador has a plan afoot to create nine planning zones (zonas de planificación), subdivided into 140 districts (distritos), and further into 1,134 circuits (circuitos). Implementation is scheduled for 2016. The zones are classified as seven regions and two metropolitan districts. The metropolitan districts will be formed from existing cantons (one canton for Quito, three for Guayaquil); the regions will be formed by combining existing provinces, excluding the territory allocated to the metropolitan districts. Most districts will be formed by combining existing cantons, but a few of the most populous cantons will be divided to form districts. Since these are all described as planning entities, it's not entirely clear to me whether the provinces, cantons, and parishes will be abolished, or will remain as administrative divisions alongside the planning divisions. See source [3] for more information.

Santa Elena and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas provinces, created in late 2007, were listed in "Geopolitical Entities and Codes", a successor to FIPS 10-4, which was published in 2010-04. ISO 3166-2 assigned codes to the two new provinces in Newsletter II-2, dated 2010-06-30.

Orellana province, created in 1998, was recognized by Change Notice 6 to FIPS PUB 10-4 (released 2001-01-28) and ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-4 (dated 2002-12-10).

Country overview: 

Short name	ECUADOR
ISO code	EC
FIPS code	EC
Language	Spanish (es)
Time zone	-5 (see note)
Capital	Quito

 

Ecuador has been an independent country throughout the whole 20th century. It has also been involved in territorial disputes throughout the century. Provincial borders have undergone extensive changes. Ecuador and Peru have fought repeatedly over disputed territories in the Región Oriental.

Time zone note: The Galapagos Islands are in time zone -6.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Ecuador
2. Dutch: Ecuador, Republiek Ecuador (formal)
3. English: Republic of Ecuador (formal)
4. Finnish: Ecuador
5. French: Équateur m
6. German: Ecuador n
7. Icelandic: Ekvador
8. Italian: Equatore, Ecuador m
9. Norwegian: Ecuador, Republikken Ecuador (formal)
10. Portuguese: Equador m, República f do Equador m (formal)
11. Russian: Республика Эквадор (formal)
12. Spanish: Ecuador, República f del Ecuador m (formal)
13. Swedish: Ecuador
14. Turkish: Ekvator Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

Spanish ecuador: equator, from location on equator

Primary subdivisions: 

Ecuador is divided into 24 provincias (provinces).

Name	HASC	ISO	FIPS	NUTE	Reg	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital	Zn
Azuay	EC.AZ	A	EC02	30101	S	712,127	8,125	3,137	Cuenca	6
Bolívar	EC.BO	B	EC03	30102	S	183,641	3,940	1,521	Guaranda	5
Cañar	EC.CN	F	EC04	30103	S	225,184	3,122	1,205	Azogues	6
Carchi	EC.CR	C	EC05	30104	S	164,524	3,605	1,392	Tulcán	1
Chimborazo	EC.CB	H	EC06	30106	S	458,581	6,569	2,536	Riobamba	3
Cotopaxi	EC.CT	X	EC07	30105	S	409,205	6,072	2,344	Latacunga	3
El Oro	EC.EO	O	EC08	30207	C	600,659	5,850	2,259	Machala	7
Esmeraldas	EC.ES	E	EC09	30208	C	534,092	15,239	5,884	Esmeraldas	1
Galápagos	EC.GA	W	EC01	30420	I	25,124	8,010	3,093	Puerto Baquerizo Moreno	5
Guayas	EC.GY	G	EC10	30209	C	3,645,483	16,740	6,463	Guayaquil	5,8
Imbabura	EC.IM	I	EC11	30110	S	398,244	4,559	1,760	Ibarra	1
Loja	EC.LJ	L	EC12	30111	S	448,966	11,027	4,258	Loja	7
Los Ríos	EC.LR	R	EC13	30212	C	778,115	7,175	2,770	Babahoyo	5
Manabí	EC.MN	M	EC14	30213	C	1,369,780	18,879	7,289	Portoviejo	4
Morona-Santiago	EC.MS	S	EC15	30314	O	147,940	25,690	9,919	Macas	6
Napo	EC.NA	N	EC23	30315	O	103,697	11,431	4,401	Tena	2
Orellana	EC.OR	D	EC24	30322	O	136,396	22,500	8,700	Puerto Francisco de Orellana	2
Pastaza	EC.PA	Y	EC17	30316	O	83,933	29,774	11,496	Puyo	3
Pichincha	EC.PC	P	EC18	30117	S	2,576,287	9,110	3,517	Quito	2,9
Santa Elena	EC.SE	SE	EC25	30224	C	308,693	3,763	1,453	Santa Elena	5
Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas	EC.SD	SD	EC26	30123	S	368,013	3,805	1,469	Santo Domingo (de los Colorados)	4
Sucumbíos	EC.SU	U	EC22	30321	O	176,472	18,328	7,076	Nueva Loja	1
Tungurahua	EC.TU	T	EC19	30118	S	504,583	3,335	1,288	Ambato	3
Zamora-Chinchipe	EC.ZC	Z	EC20	30319	O	91,376	23,111	8,923	Zamora	7
24 provinces						14,483,499	272,048	105,038
HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. According to "Where's That Vehicle Come From? ", the first letter on the license plate of a vehicle is the same as the ISO code (in the draft standard) for the province where the vehicle is registered. See the Postal codes heading below. FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. NUTE: Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units. Reg: Region of Ecuador, keyed to the table below. Population: 2010-11-28 census (source [4]). Zn: Future zone number(s) according to source [3].

 

Note: Populations and areas of the new provinces were calculated by adding up the corresponding figures for the cantons that constitute them.

Reg	NUTE	Name
C	302	Costa
I	304	Insular
O	303	Oriente (Amazonica)
S	301	Sierra

Postal codes: 

Ecuador uses six-character postal codes. The first character is the province letter (ISO code of the province). The next two characters are digits indicating the canton. The next two are digits indicating the parish. Finally, one additional letter identifies a local delivery area. That is the explanation given in the Universal Postal Union's document, but I haven't observed these codes in actual use.

Further subdivisions:

See the Cantons of Ecuador page.

The provinces are subdivided into cantones (cantons), which are further subdivided into parroquias (parishes). The parishes are classified as parroquias urbanas (urban) and parroquias rurales (rural). Spanish Wikipedia says that there are 221 cantons and 820 parishes as of late 2013.

Territorial extent: 

Ecuador's territorial claim extended as far as the Marañón River before 1942. In that year, the Protocol of Rio de Janeiro drew the border between Ecuador and Peru shown on most modern maps. However, Ecuador still claims some of the region adjudicated to Peru. This area was part of the Región Oriental, which in 1942 consisted of Napo Pastaza and Santiago Zamora provinces.

Galápagos consists of an isolated island group in the Pacific, including the islands of Fernandina, Isabela (the largest), San Cristóbal (site of the capital), San Salvador, and Santa Cruz.

Guayas contains Isla Puná and other smaller islands in the mouth of the Guayas River.

The UN LOCODE page  for Ecuador lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

1. Archipiélago de Colón: named for Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón in Spanish)
2. Bolívar: named for Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), liberator of Ecuador from Spanish rule
3. Chimborazo: after Chimborazo, the highest mountain in the world (as measured by its summit's distance from the center of the earth)
4. Cotopaxi: after the volcano Cotopaxi, from Quechua q`utu: smokes, p`asi: mouth.
5. El Oro: Spanish for The Gold
6. Esmeraldas: Spanish for Emeralds
7. Galápagos: Spanish galápago: river tortoise
8. Guayas: ethnic name
9. Los Ríos: Spanish for The Rivers

Change history: 

1. 1880-11-03: Cañar and Carchi provinces created.
2. 1884-04-23: Bolívar province split from Los Ríos; El Oro province split from Guayas.
3. 1904: Ecuador ceded land between the Japurá and Amazon Rivers, as far west as the modern border between Brazil and Colombia, to Brazil.
4. 1920-12-15: Oriente region (capital Archidona) split into the provinces of Napo Pastaza (capital Tena) and Santiago Zamora (capital Macas). The name Región Oriental is still applied to the group of provinces descended from these.
5. 1939: Name of León province changed to Cotopaxi.
6. 1953-11-10: Santiago Zamora province split into Morona-Santiago and Zamora-Chinchipe.
7. 1959-10-22: Napo Pastaza province split into Napo and Pastaza.
8. ~1965: Capital of Archipiélago de Colón moved from San Cristóbal to nearby Puerto Baquerizo Moreno (sometimes shortened to either Puerto Baquerizo or Baquerizo Moreno).
9. 1973-02-18: Territorio Insular del Archipiélago de Colón territory became Galápagos province.
10. 1989-02-13: Sucumbíos province split from Napo (former FIPS code EC16).
11. 1998-07-30: Orellana province split from Napo.
12. 2007-10-02: Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas formed by taking Santo Domingo de los Colorados canton from Pichincha (former HASC code EC.PI). The canton, but not its capital city, was renamed to match the province.
13. 2007-11-07: Santa Elena province formed by taking La Libertad, Salinas, and Santa Elena cantons from Guayas (former HASC code EC.GU).
14. 2013-05-31: La Concordia canton moved from Esmeraldas province to Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. Its area is 375 km.² (about 145 mi.²).

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Cotopaxi: León (obsolete)
2. Galápagos: Archipiélago de Colón (variant)

Population history:

Province	1933-12-31	1950-11-29	1962-11-25	1974-06-08	1982-11-28	1990-11-25	2001-11-25	2010-11-28
Azuay	222,717	250,975	286,226	367,324	442,019	506,090	599,546	712,127
Bolívar	82,513	109,305	144,397	144,593	152,101	163,149	169,370	183,641
Cañar	107,691	97,681	117,409	146,570	174,510	189,347	206,981	225,184
Carchi	64,836	76,595	98,712	120,857	127,779	141,482	152,939	164,524
Chimborazo	223,938	218,130	296,080	304,316	334,100	366,636	403,632	458,581
Cotopaxi	176,831	165,602	202,412	236,313	277,678	276,324	349,540	409,205
El Oro	64,969	89,306	164,602	262,564	334,872	412,572	525,763	600,659
Esmeraldas	43,883	75,407	127,847	203,151	249,008	306,777	385,223	534,092
Galápagos	2,031	1,346	2,468	4,037	6,119	9,785	18,640	25,124
Guayas	351,438	582,144	1,002,975	1,512,333	2,038,454	2,515,146	3,309,034	3,645,483
Imbabura	129,872	146,893	181,096	216,027	247,287	275,943	344,044	398,244
Loja	156,847	216,802	297,587	342,339	360,767	384,698	404,835	448,966
Los Ríos	104,547	150,260	255,942	383,432	455,869	527,559	650,178	778,115
Manabí	235,077	401,378	627,235	817,966	906,676	1,031,927	1,186,025	1,369,780
Morona-Santiago	186,272	21,046	26,894	173,469	70,217	95,421	115,412	147,940
Napo		25,425	25,582		115,110	103,610	79,139	103,697
Orellana							86,493	136,396
Pastaza			14,442		31,779	42,236	61,779	83,933
Pichincha	261,902	386,520	612,366	988,306	1,382,125	1,756,228	2,388,817	2,576,287
Santa Elena								308,693
Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas								368,013
Sucumbíos						77,148	128,995	176,472
Tungurahua	184,752	187,942	224,739	279,920	326,777	368,511	441,034	504,583
Zamora-Chinchipe			12,089		46,691	66,167	76,601	91,376
Disputed areas				18,193	59,036	70,621	72,588	32,384
Total	2,600,116	3,202,757	4,721,100	6,521,710	8,138,974	9,697,979	12,156,608	14,483,499

 

1933 figures are from source [2], and are described as calculated populations. 1962 figures are "datos corregidos" (corrected data) shown in a later source. For 1933, the entire population of the Región Oriental is shown under Morona-Santiago. For 1950, the population of Napo Pastaza province is shown under Napo, and Santiago Zamora under Morona-Santiago. Other years have similar combinations, according to the provinces existing at each census.

Sources: 

1. [1] Library of Congress country study  (retrieved 1999).
2. [2] Peñaherrera G., A., "Informe de la Direccion General de Estadistica, Registro Civil y Censo al Sr. Ministro del Ramo". Quito, 1934.
3. [3] Zonas, distritos y circuitos , Secretaría Nacional de Planificación y Desarrollo (retrieved 2013-10-29).
4. [4] Resultados Censo de Población . Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (retrieved 2014-02-22).