Chinandega Department
Chinandega is a department in Nicaragua, located on the border with Honduras. It covers an area of and has a population of 441,897. The indigenous inhabitants of Chinandega are the Chorotegas and the Nahuas, and was the location of the pre-Columbian Nahua kingdom of Teswatlan. The capital is the city of Chinandega.
Largely agricultural, it produces rum from sugar cane; other products are bananas, peanuts, shrimp and salt.
The port of Corinto, in Chinandega, is the most important in Western Nicaragua.