San Jerónimo, Baja Verapaz

San Jerónimo on the map of Guatemala

San Jerónimo is a large village ( municipality ) in the department of Baja Verapaz in Guatemala. In the 474 km ² large municipality about 18,000 people, of which a large part in San Jerónimo, the rest in 18 imputed rural communities and 13 hamlets life.

Location

San Jerónimo lies to the east of the department of Baja Verapaz, at the end of the valley of Salamá on a fertile hillside. From Guatemala City are on the European Road CA 9 and then on leading from El Rancho to Coban CA 14 about 150 miles, San Jerónimo.

The municipality of the same name is bordered on the southeast by the Department of El Progreso and otherwise to Salamá.

Economy

San Jerónimo lives mainly from agriculture and the sugar industry. Since the location of the main traffic route is a few miles west to Coban, you do not particularly benefited from through traffic. From tourist importance, the annually held between 27 and 30 September celebrations are in honor of the patron saint Jerome.

History

In the train of peaceful proselytizing of Verapaz region by Bartolomé de Las Casas at the site of the present town of San Jerónimo first church and a branch of the Dominicans was from 1537. Them is the construction of an irrigation system attributable, as well as the cultivation of wine which was soon sold throughout Central America. 1601 built the Dominicans a sugar mill and founded the company Hacienda San Jerónimo, later, more than 1,000 people employed and was famous for its rum. 1829, the hacienda was secularized in 1893 and led by an Englishman, who only focused on the production of liquor from sugar cane. The government also maintained an official liquor warehouse here. Later, the operation fell into disuse, the settlement was oriented economically elsewhere. In recent years, the sugar industry has set up on the property is a small, interesting museum. Parts of the scale of the Dominicans aqueducts may also be visited.