Guatemala Department
The Department Guatemala is one of 22 departments of the Republic of Guatemala. It is located in the southern highlands and extends to 2253 km ². Capital of the department and the Republic is Guatemala City. The department has officially around 3 million inhabitants and is due to its economic and demographic weight at the same time Región Metropolitana, one of the eight established for purposes of spatial planning and economic planning regions of the country.
The department Guatemala bordered to the north Baja Verapaz, north-east by the department of El Progreso, on the east by Jalapa, on the southeast by Santa Rosa, on the southwest by Escuintla and to the west by Sacatepequez and Chimaltenango.
Provincial nature
The department is situated at an average altitude of about 1,500 meters in the Cordillera of the Central American Sierra Madre. In the center of the department is located within the area bounded by ravines and mountains high valley Valle de La Ermita (also Valle de La Virgen de las Vacas or Valle ) Guatemala City. The surrounding cities and towns will be in part plateaus interrupted by deep valleys. The nearly 4,000 -meter-high volcanoes Agua, Fuego and Acatenango, which dominate the landscape of the department, are in the adjacent Sacatepéquez. In the southwest lies on the border of Escuintla Pacaya, one of the most active volcanoes in the Americas, and at the foot of the Amatitlán Lake. The South is already dropped slightly toward the Pacific coast from and is drained by the Rio Maria Linda and its tributaries. In the north, the rivers Pixcayá, Las Vacas, Las Cañas and their tributaries flow into the Río Motagua, which in turn forms the border with Baja Verapaz, and finally empties into the Caribbean. The climate is temperate on the high plains in general, with daytime temperatures 18-28 ° C colder it gets to the mountain ranges, warmer in the lower elevations to the north and south of the department. The rainy season usually lasts from May to October, exceptions to this rule are, however, becoming more common. Large parts of the mountain forest gave way to new residential and industrial areas, roads and agriculture.
Population
In the 19th century, the department had about 100,000 inhabitants. Besides Ladinos it was predominantly inhabited by the Cakchiquel and Pocomam. In 1950, 250,000 people in Guatemala City. The devastating earthquake of 1976 destroyed addition to the capital many other towns and villages of Guatemala. Many homeless people from other parts of the country soon came into the department and settled in the hitherto rural municipios to Guatemala City. As a result of this disaster and in the train of the general population explosion, the agglomeration Guatemala City developed. It now has about 2.5 million inhabitants according to official figures, and is next to Guatemala City, which with over a million inhabitants the largest city in Central America, from the big cities Mixco and Villanueva as well as some other surrounding places like Chinautla and Santa Catarina Pinula. Nowhere else in the country the contrasts between rich and poor are as strong as in the metropolitan area of the capital: hardly distinguish While individual districts and settlements from major cities in North America and Europe, many people live in unstable homes on the slopes of the ravines, the ravines, which are run through the area and often affected during the rainy season landslides. The agglomeration eats more and more into the countryside, as a small, emerging middle class can afford to buy a house in the closed communities or rent the building construction industry systematically on the basis of former fincas. At the same time, poorer families in desolate satellite towns in the surrounding areas let down because the rents in the city are too expensive. In addition to the increasing deforestation of the remaining forest, this also leads to a further deterioration of the traffic situation in the rush hours.
To the population, there are numerous speculations, which are often based on inaccurate definitions, and in particular the erroneous equation of Guatemala City with the agglomeration. The fact is that in the metropolitan area countless people live, which are not officially recognized or registered in other departments. This takes into account the National Statistics Institute INE in its projections in general. About 5 million people can be during working days in the metropolitan area, including day and weekend commuter stop. The department now has at least 3 million people in 17 municipios ( large municipalities or counties ):
The Municipalities are autonomous local authorities with elected mayors and elected assemblies. Urban embossed Municipalities are divided generally into Zonas and Colonias ( municipalities and settlements ), Rural Municipalities in Aldeas and Pueblos ( rural communities ) and in Caseríos, Parajes, Estates, Rancherias ( hamlets and farms ). The Department as state administrative district is headed by a delegated by the central government governor.
Economy
The Department of Guatemala is the most dynamic economic region of Central America. In the capital, authorities, associations, guilds, media companies, banks, insurance companies, transportation companies, branches of foreign corporations and various other service industries focus. Since the state only offers a basic service in the field of education, is a flourishing education industry with countless private schools and several private universities of different quality has developed. In the environment in Mixco and especially in Villanueva, there are many industries, including food, textile and construction industries. San Juan Sacatepéquez is known for its furniture making. Of secondary importance is the pharmaceutical industry and the automotive industry. Often produced in maquilas that bring the usually foreign entrepreneurs bring good profits and the local people jobs. Since functioning unions are missing, the workers are not exploited unscrupulously in the maquilas. Moreover, Departamento agriculture and animal husbandry plays a role. Crops grown among other beans, corn, coffee, sugarcane, ornamentals and fruit and vegetables. Tourism is limited to through traffic and to a few attractions in Guatemala City and in the surrounding areas, including the Pacaya and the Amatitlán Lake.
Traffic
Since Guatemala City is the transportation hub of the country, the department is relatively well developed. Here is the line passing through the highlands Interamericana hits (CA 1) on the Interoceanica (CA 9), which connects on the Caribbean coast of Puerto San José on the Pacific and Puerto Barrios. These two highways that have been developed in the department to motorways, all other parts of the country may ultimately be achieved. A ring road around the capital ( Anillo Metropolitano, a new designation: Anillo Departamental or regional ) to be built from 2011. The first, relatively far to the north extending portion ( Chuarrancho ) will connect the CA 1 and the CA 9 between Santo Domingo Xenacoj ( Sacatepéquez ) and Sanarate ( Department of El Progreso ). In Guatemala City there is a multi-lane ring road ( Anillo Periferico ), but in name only, as they are only in the north, west and south has a continuous route and at the same time absorbs almost the entire heavy traffic from the Pacific to the Caribbean, and vice versa. The railway from Puerto San Jose on Guatemala City to Puerto Barrios, which could bring this heavy traffic at least partially from the road to rail, was shut down several years ago. Reactivation with the help of foreign capital has so far failed several times to conflicts of interest. In contrast to Mexico City or Caracas Guatemala City also has no subway and no S- or light rail. The entire public transport in the agglomeration is, apart from taxis, ensured by a dense network of bus routes. Assaults on both remote and especially city buses and the generally critical security situation in turn have strengthened private transport, with appropriate congestion of the main roads at peak times. In Guatemala City, you have single lanes separated in recent years by structural measures and provided with numerous S-Bahn stations resembling bus stops. The trains running there green buses as opposed to the other buses only to the official, the police secured stations. This very successful and relatively inexpensive Busway system is officially called trans metro and unofficially referred to as metro de superficie ( "Surface Metro" ). The rest of the city bus lines (red buses) are gradually replaced since 2010 by the new passenger transport system transurbano ( white-blue buses).
The international airport Guatemala City, since its renovation as Central America's most modern airport.
History
The very convenient location at the crossroads of important trade routes between the Pacific highlands and Caribbean moving the Maya Around 800 BC, on the backed by deep ravines and climatically very pleasant plateau on which today is Guatemala City, the major commercial center Kaminaljuyu to build. The city was once five square kilometers in size and sometimes had more than 50,000 inhabitants. In the 4th century AD to Kaminaljuyu allies, at that time the largest city in the Guatemalan highlands, with Tikal ( Petén ) and Teotihuacán (Mexico ) and reached thus in addition to its economic importance and considerable political influence. The decline of the Allies in the 7th and 8th centuries contributed to the decay and the task Kaminaljuyús. The area was settled in the sequence over several centuries by a few Cakchiquel and Pocomam. After Pedro de Alvarado in 1524 and 1525 their forts Iximché and Chinautla Viejo ( " Mixco Viejo " ) destroyed and the population was subjected, he set up the capital of his colonial territory first in today's Ciudad Vieja one, from 1543 then in Antigua Guatemala, to the counties, the area of today's departments during the colonial period largely belonged. The severe earthquake on July 26, 1773 destroyed Antigua and led to the transfer of the capital of the General Captaincy of Guatemala. Chosen after long disputes, the area around the village of La Ermita, near the ruins of Kaminaljuyu where Guatemala City was founded in 1776. After independence from Spain, the government divided the territory on 4 November 1825, first seven departments, including the department of Guatemala. In 1935 it was expanded to the south to the area of the dissolved departments Amatitlán.