When the educated natives of the capital city of Ecuador are questioned about social class and the power structure of their country, the answer comes unhesitatingly and with little variation. Everyone, and of course the educated are as yet few in number, knows who is who and what is what. The sampler of random opinion concludes that the real power is no longer in Quito but in the port of Guayaquil. This has been documented by Díaz, who claims that the traditional aristocracy today owns only about 50 percent of sierran acreage, most of it impoverished and ruined, and that this class is declining steadily with the growth of various coastal “bourgeoisie” classes which stem from the commercial and banking interests of the coast. Politically, too, according to Lang, the coastal influence is undermining that of the sierra, the deposition of the military junta in 1966 being attributable to pressures from the Guayaquil commercial oligarchy.