1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Ecuador
Compare this sourced profile of Cuenca, Ecuador before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Cuenca—636,996, America/Guayaquil, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Cuenca is GeoNames ID 3658666. Its recorded administrative path is Cuenca → Azuay → Ecuador, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Cuenca occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2025-07-07; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Cuenca ranks 873 by recorded population. Inside the 3 selected Ecuador entries it ranks 3; inside the 198 entries in its broad region it ranks 141. Its 636,996 population value is 0.23 times the 2,723,665 median for the country cohort and 0.78 times the 816,326 regional median. Cuenca is rank 3 among the 3 selected Ecuador entries, so a percentage band would overstate this small cohort. Cuenca's recorded value is materially below the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Cuenca's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Guayaquil at 125.762 km with 2,723,665 recorded people; Quito at 300.979 km with 2,781,641 recorded people; Piura at 313.976 km with 630,000 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 188.214 km. Compared with Guayaquil, Cuenca's recorded population is 0.23 times as large. Against Cuenca, Guayaquil follows Guayaquil → Guayas → Ecuador in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Ecuador cohort, uses the shared America/Guayaquil identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is above Cuenca's. Against Cuenca, Quito follows Quito → Pichincha → Ecuador in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected Ecuador cohort, uses the shared America/Guayaquil identifier, and carries capital of a political entity rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Cuenca's. Against Cuenca, Piura follows Provincia de Piura → Piura → Peru in the source. Its point has lower latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the selected Peru cohort rather than Ecuador, uses America/Lima instead of America/Guayaquil, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Cuenca's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 803 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Cuenca's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 3658666, the coordinate pair 2.8953 / 78.9963, country rank 3 of 3, and neighbor GeoNames 3657509 at 125.762 km bind Cuenca to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Cuenca's reference point is 2.8953° south and 78.9963° west. The IANA identifier America/Guayaquil is shared by 3 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Cuenca's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Cuenca's point falls in the near-equatorial coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Cuenca's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Cuenca, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Cuenca's closest other entries in this atlas are Guayaquil (125.762 km), Quito (300.979 km), Piura (313.976 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Cuenca, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2025-07-07; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.