Guatemala

Guatemala is a republic in northern Central America, bordered by Mexico, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. It has coasts on the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Honduras, and two mountain chains divide it into highlands, a Pacific plain and the northern lowlands of Petén.

Guatemala City is the capital and largest city, and Spanish is the sole official language; a Language Law of 2003 recognizes 21 Mayan languages together with Xinca and Garifuna as national languages. The land was the heart of the Maya civilization, whose Classic period ran from about 250 to 900 AD, with the densest group of cities in Petén. Pedro de Alvarado led the Spanish conquest in 1523–1524. After 1541 the colonial capital moved to the Panchoy Valley, today Antigua Guatemala, and in 1776 the present capital was founded. On 15 September 1821 the Captaincy General of Guatemala declared independence from Spain and briefly joined the Mexican Empire, then from 1823 belonged to the Federal Republic of Central America. On 17 April 1839 Guatemala declared itself a separate state.

Guatemala is a constitutional republic led by a president who heads both the state and the government, while laws are made by the Congress of the Republic. Coffee became a main crop after the liberal reforms that Justo Rufino Barrios began in 1871, and German settlers later planted coffee and cardamom farms. Sugar cane, bananas and palm oil are the other traditional crops, and exports also include fruit, vegetables, flowers, cloth and handicrafts. Since 2006 the country has belonged to the DR-CAFTA free trade agreement with the United States and its neighbors.

Tikal National Park in Petén was the first site put on the UNESCO list for both nature and culture, and Maya ruins also stand at Quiriguá and Iximche. Natural sights include Lake Atitlán and Semuc Champey, and the Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in the capital holds a large collection of Maya objects. Miguel Ángel Asturias, author of El Señor Presidente, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967, and Rigoberta Menchú received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Cooks still build on maize, chilies and black beans in dishes such as the turkey stew kak'ik and pepián, and the national football team won the CONCACAF Championship in 1967.