Melchor de Mencos
Melchor de Mencos on the map of Guatemala
Melchor de Mencos (also Ciudad Melchor de Mencos ) is an approximately 4,000 inhabitants small town in Guatemala. It is located in the extreme east of the department of Petén, and is the administrative seat of the municipios Melchor de Mencos which extends 2,098 km ² and 25,000 inhabitants.
Geography
Melchor de Mencos lies on the border with Belize. Behind the border crossing to the small town of Benque Viejo del Carmen joins. The border towns are located at about 130 m altitude at the Rio Mopan. Melchor de Mencos is connected via the CA Highway 13 with Flores, the capital Peténs, and the rest of Guatemala. According to Flores, there are nearly 100 km, to Guatemala City to Belize City and about 600 130 km.
As with all municipios Peténs the main village is located on a major thoroughfare, while the administrative territory stretches far back in sparsely populated regions. In the case of Melchor de Mencos this includes a narrow, extending in a north-south direction strip along the border with Belize. Subsequent to the municipality of Dolores, he begins in the south at 16 ° 49 ' north latitude ( about the height of Caracol ), in the north it ends at 17 ° 49' on the border with Mexico. The area covered by tropical rainforest north of the Municipalities is part of the Biosphere Reserve Reserve of the Biosphere Maya. The ( controversial ) Belize border runs to the east at 89 ° 09 ' west longitude, in the west borders the municipality of Santa Ana and Flores ( 89 ° 20').
Population
Due to the cross-border movement of people lives a colorful mixture in Melchor de Mencos. 85 percent are Ladinos different origin, 13 percent Maya various ethnic groups and two percent belong to the Afro-Caribbean community. The people live by trade and agriculture. Of importance is the timber industry and the cultivation of corn and beans.
The municipality is divided into six " rural communities " ( Aldeas ) El Arenal, Cidabenque, El Cruzadero, Tikalito, La Pólvora and La Blanca, and these in turn in 36 hamlets.
History
The place Melchor de Mencos was founded in 1869 by an American lumberjack, and called his time Fallabón. The name is probably due to a fire and subsequent explosion and fire on the corruption of English words and booming. Then as now, the place was marked by the passing traffic as the lack of adequate infrastructure then traveled the people from the northern Petén over Fallabón to Belize and then by sea to Puerto Barrios and from there to Guatemala City. Only with the construction of the highway CA 13 (and some airfields, including that of Melchor ), the through traffic developed to the present Article Until April 26, 1962 was Fallabón and its surrounding municipality on Flores. Then the two Aldeas Fallabón and plancha de Piedras were merged, spun off from Flores and raised to the new town and the municipality of Melchor de Mencos. The new name comes from the officer Melchor de Mencos y Varon, who beat the British in the Battle of the Laguna de Coba on April 30, 1754. Because of the emphatic and politically unjustified claims that Guatemala raised long time to Belize, presented the Armed Forces of Guatemala in La Pólvora at Melchor de Mencos end of 1974, their special unit Kaibiles on at a strategically important point. 1982 Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos threatened Montt the neighboring country with a military attack, headed by the Kaibiles would have stood. 1989 finally moved to their headquarters to the further south to Puerto Barrios Poptún and 2008. The bases in La Pólvora and Poptún persist, however.
Attractions
The place Melchor de Mencos has no sights. A certain degree of attraction is just south of the Río Mopan running dar. Petén is known for its numerous Mayan ruins, many of which are in the field of Municipalities Melchor de Mencos. The latter, however, are difficult to reach and often do not get good, on the other hand compared to Tikal or Yaxhá less crowded. Among the most important Mayan ruins of Municipalities include ( from south to north ) Chac ha, Naranjo, Chunhuitz, Manantial, Chuuís, Nuevo Holmul, Yaloch, Ceibal II, Chonchkitam and Kinal.