The history of the Cordoba

(TODAY NICARAGUA) Nicaragua’s currency, the Cordoba, has the name of a Spanish conqueror, but it was born under the American intervention of 1912.

Today the Cordoba is a fictitious currency, says the economist José Luis Medal, because the prices of almost all products are dollarized.

According to Medal, the Nicaraguan economy is de facto dollarized.

Cordoba, which turned 108 years old on March 20 of this year, is considered to have lived its golden age during its first 22 years of life, when North American bankers, who ran the National Bank of Nicaragua, fought wars, such as the Constitutional and Sandino’s; natural disasters, such as the 1931 earthquake, and bad harvests, in order to keep Cordoba at par with the dollar.

Another moment of brilliance for Córdoba was between 1955 and 1979 when it remained unchanged at seven cordobas for one dollar but then collapsed in the 1980s, under the Sandinista regime of that time.