The steamboat on Ecuador’s coat of arms is named Guayas.
The vessel appears on the shield above the Guayas River, with Mount Chimborazo in the background. It represents the Guayas, a historic steamboat built in Guayaquil and associated with Ecuador’s early development of steam navigation. The ship is shown with a caduceus-like feature, linking it with commerce and economic activity.
Readers sometimes confuse Guayas with Chimborazo because both names appear on the shield: Chimborazo is the mountain, while Guayas is both the river represented in the scene and the steamboat. The vessel was built in Guayaquil and entered service on 9 October 1841. It is widely described as the first seaworthy steamship built in Ecuador and in South America.