Durán Canton

Durán, is a canton located in the province of Guayas, Ecuador, near the confluence of the Daule & Babahoyo rivers, where the Guayas River enters the ocean. It is located across the Guayas River from Guayaquil. Its township or capital is Eloy Alfaro. The canton was created in 1986 during the presidential period of Leon Febres Cordero through a presidential decree. The name "Eloy Alfaro" was chosen because of the Ecuadorian ex-president Eloy Alfaro Delgado. According to the National census in 2010, there are 235,769 people residing within the canton limits. Many of its inhabitants commute to other places for work and it can be considered a "dormitory town". However, many people who live in Durán find work within the canton by opening "comedores" or small restaurants, selling produce at the market, or even opening little stores with basic produce and house necessities. The towns Durán, Samborondón, and Guayaquil are connected by the bridge Rafael Mendoza Avilés. Durán is also well known for being the first railroad hub in Ecuador. It is the coastal railhead for the Ecuadorean rail network, and the closest point to Guayaquil because the railroad does not bridge the Guayas River. Since July 2007, a government program for the railroad reactivation began as well as the railroad connecting Duran with other cities located in the highlands of Ecuador. The Empresa de Ferrocarriles Ecuatorianos offers rail service aimed at tourists to Quito.

The National Unity Bridge (Puente de la Unidad Nacional) is a bridge complex in northeastern Guayaquil, Ecuador with a length of 2,186 metres (7,172 ft). The National Unity Bridge crosses the Daule River and Babahoyo River, which combine to form the Guayas River immediately downstream. The bridge complex consists of four individual bridges: two parallel bridges across the Daule River (the Rafael Mendoza Avilés Bridge and the Carlos Pérez Peraso Bridge) and two parallel bridges across the Babahoyo River, along with a road in La Puntilla, Samborondón that links each set of bridges. The bridge connects the city of Guayaquil with Durán to its east, and by extension to the highland part of Ecuador. Construction of the National Unity Bridge commenced on 23 March 1967, and the bridge was inaugurated on 9 October 1970.

The Babahoyo River is a river in western Ecuador, fed by tributaries rising in the Andes Mountains. It takes its name from the town of Babahoyo in Los Ríos. At Durán, it joins the Daule River to form the Guayas River, which continues to the Pacific Ocean. The river is the backbone of trade in the city of the same name. Much of west-central Ecuadorian agricultural produce, especially rice, sugarcane, fruits, balsa wood, and tagua nuts are grown here.

The Daule River is a river in Ecuador, in Guayas Province. At Guayaquil, it joins the Babahoyo River; from that point the confluence becomes the Guayas River.

Museo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo (English: "Anthropology and Contemporary Art Museum"), or MAAC is a state-of-the-art museum in Guayaquil, Ecuador celebrating Ecuadorian, Latin American and Pre-Columbian art and culture. MAAC is a welcome addition to Malecón 2000, the renovated riverwalk in Guayaquil. Inaugurated on 30 July 2003, MAAC aims to constitute itself in a catalyst for the development of the local, regional and national artistic culture. MAAC's mission is to harness the institutional cultural patrimony, by showcasing a valuable collection of 50,000 native Ecuadorian archaeological pieces and over 3,000 modern works of art. The MAAC offers many integrated programs that include exhibitions, conferences, round tables, factories, projections of cinema, scenic arts, through which it aims to fulfill the challenges of putting the cultural patrimony to the service of the development of the Country and to help in cultural education of the community, on the base of a permanent interchange, stimulating the critical conscience of a diverse community.

Santa Ana Hill is a tourist attraction in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo (UEES) is a non-profit private university in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Its campus is in Samborondón, Greater Guayaquil. One distinctive program of UEES is the College of International Studies, home to the International Careers Program (ICP), which offers courses entirely in English, the School of Translation and Interpretation, the School of Foreign Languages and Applied Linguistics, and the Center for International Education. Founded by Dr. Carlos Ortega Maldonado, it was accredited by CONESUP, then the Ecuadorian higher education governing agency.

Samborondón Canton is a canton of Ecuador, located in the Guayas Province. Its capital is the town of Samborondón. Its population at the 2001 census was 45,476.

Samborondón is a canton in Ecuador’s Guayas province. It has 105 localities and two urban parishes (La Puntilla) and Samborondón Town (Cabecera cantonal) and one rural parish (Tarifa). La Puntilla's parish is one of the most exclusive residential and entertainment districts in Ecuador. It has many Gated Communities (urbanizaciones cerradas), and several retail developments are located in the suburb. Its close proximity to the country's second-largest city, Guayaquil (merely crossing a bridge), allows many of its residents to work there. Most of the upper-class families in Guayaquil live at La Puntilla's Parish in Samborondón.

Guayaquil Municipal Museum (Spanish: Museo Municipal de Guayaquil) is a museum in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It contains artifacts, objects and historical items relating to the history of Guayaquil. It is considered the most important of the city and one of the best in the country. It is located in the center of the city of Guayaquil, in the same building as the Municipal Library. Admission is free, but passports are required.The museum has its origins in 1863 when an industrial museum was started by the politician and writer Pedro Carbo Noboa, making it the oldest in Ecuador, but it was not until 1908 that the museum was officially founded. The first director was Camilo Destruge Illingworth. The museum has gone through a variety of moves and renovations, acquiring its own building for the first time in 1916.The museum's website outlines the following rooms: Pre-Hispanic Room: ceramic, metal, and stone objects and handicrafts from the Valdivia, Machalilla and Chorrera cultures Colonial Room: includes Spanish firearms, a diorama from the old church of Santo Domingo, the layouts of Guayaquil traced between 1170 and 1772 by Francisco Requena and Ramon Garcia de Leon y Pizarro, and a scale model of the city made by architect Parsival Castro according to a sketch made in 1858 by Manuel Villavicencio" Religious Art Room: "an exhibition of mystic scenes comprised by religious paintings from the churches of Guayaquil; icons and archetypes of sacred art, and sculptures crafted by colonial artists like Diego Robles" Numismatic Room: coins, particularly the barter systemThe museum also has a collection of tsantsas, or shrunken heads.

Luis Adolfo Noboa Naranjo Museum (Spanish: Museo Luis Adolfo Noboa Naranjo) is a museum in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It was established on January 25, 2006, by Alvaro Noboa. It displays the private collection of paintings of the late Ecuadorian entrepreneur, Luis Noboa Naranjo, representing a sample of the most important contemporary Ecuadorian painters, with whom he had cultivated friendship. The museum consists of 10 halls with 97 pieces of art, with a particular focus on avant-garde, including three murals of Manuel Rendon, and the paintings of Oswaldo Guayasamín, Eduardo Kingman, Humberto Moré, Carlos Catasse, Ricardo Montesinos, Segundo Espinel, Luis Miranda, Oswaldo Viteri and others. The museum offers guided programs for schools and colleges through city tours, permanent public displays, temporary exhibitions, and painting competitions.

Malecón 2000 is the name given to boardwalk overlooking the Guayas River in the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil. An urban renewal project focusing on the old Simón Bolívar boardwalk, it stands along the west shore of the river for an approximate length of 2.5 km. (1.5 mi.) Several of the greatest historical monuments in the history of Guayaquil can be seen along its length, as well as museums, gardens, fountains, shopping malls, restaurants, bars, food courts, the first IMAX theater in South America, as well as boarding docks where several embarkations offer both daytime and nighttime tours up and down the Guayas River. It is one of the largest works realized in Guayaquil and it is considered a model of urban regeneration by global standards, having been declared a healthy public space by the Pan-American Organization of Health (POH) and the World Health Organization (WHO).