Villa Canales
Villa Canales on the map of Guatemala
Villa Canales is a city in Guatemala and the administrative seat of the homonymous municipios in the department of Guatemala. The town is located 22 km south of Guatemala City is 1,276 m above sea level at the decommissioned since 2007 railway line to Puerto San José.
The 353 km ² large municipality extends in the southern highlands of the department of Guatemala, which already falls here to the coastal plain on the Pacific Ocean and is crossed by several creeks. The eastern part of the lake belongs to the municipality of Amatitlán Villa Canales, already include its northwestern territories for the agglomeration of Guatemala City. It has around 110,000 inhabitants, of which the majority lives in suburban and rural settlements and villages, including Boca del Monte, Colmenas, Cumbre de San Nicolás, Chichimecas, El Durazno, El Jocotillo, El Obrajuelo, El Porvenir, Los Dolores, Los Pocitos, San José el Tablón, Santa Elena Barrillas and Santa Rosita.
Adjacent Municipalities are Amatitlán in the West, Petapa Guatemala City to the northwest, Santa Catarina Pinula in the Northeast and Fraijanes in the east. In the southeast of Villa Canales borders the Municipalities and Pueblo Nuevo Viñas Barbarena of the department of Santa Rosa, on the southwest by the Municipalities of San Vicente Pacaya and Guanagazapa of the department of Escuintla.
Villa Canales is at the place where the old village of San Miguel Petapa was flooded and destroyed on October 9, 1762 from the Río Tulujá. Some of the survivors of the disaster moved to safer places in the vicinity and founded Villanueva and the new village of San Miguel Petapa. Where today is Villa Canales, left after 1762 only some Pocomam families who built the place makeshift. By 1912, he was only Pueblo Viejo ( " Old Village " ), was once a rural community ( Aldea ) to San Miguel Petapa. 1912 was the collection for the municipality, in 1915 renamed the San Joaquin Villa Canales ( the old name still carries a settlement in the east of the village ). Since 1921 the official name is only Villa Canales. The municipality lost its rural community Fraijanes 1924, which was self-employed as municipality. Villa Canales belonged until 1935 to the Department Amatitlán and then came to the resolution to the department of Guatemala.