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Guatemala, [a] officially the Republic of Guatemala, [b] is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically bordered to the south by the Pacific Ocean and to the northeast by the Gulf of Honduras.
Guatemala: Guatemala City : The origin of the name "Guatemala" is the =Nahuatl word Quauhtemallan meaning "forested land". This was the name that the Nahuatl-speaking Mexican allies of the Spanish conquistadors used for Iximche , the Kaqchikel Maya capital that the Spanish adopted as their colonial city.
The history of Guatemala traces back to the Maya civilization (2600 BC – 1697 AD), with the country's modern history beginning with the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in 1524. By 1000 AD, most of the major Classic-era (250–900 AD) Maya cities in the Petén Basin , located in the northern lowlands, had been abandoned.
Ursúa returned to Mérida, leaving Kan Ekʼ and other high-ranking members of his family as prisoners of the Spanish garrison at Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y San Pablo. Reinforcements arrived from Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala (modern Antigua Guatemala) in 1699 but they did not stay long due to an outbreak of disease. When they ...
Guatemala is heavily centralized. Transportation, communications, business, politics, and the most relevant urban activity takes place in Guatemala City. Guatemala City has about 2 million inhabitants within the city limits and more than 5 million within the wider urban area. This is a significant percentage of the population (14 million). [8]
Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Mennonite, Maya religion, recent small communities of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox in West Guatemala. [ 3 ] Qʼeqchiʼ ( /qʼeqt͡ʃiʔ/ ) (Kʼekchiʼ in the former orthography, or simply Kekchi in many English-language contexts, such as in Belize) are a Maya people of Guatemala , Belize and Mexico .
Many place names in Guatemala, including the name of the country, are Nahuatl names imposed by the conquering Spaniards, using words given to them by their Mexican allies. Sac in Maya means white, however, and the legend is that the white sediments in the banks and hills above the Polochic River are the origin of Sac Wal B'a.
Guatemala City (Spanish: Ciudad de Guatemala) is known colloquially by Guatemalans as La Capital or Guate. Its formal name is Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción [ 8 ] (New Guatemala of the Assumption). The latter name is derived from the fact that it was a new Guatemala after the old one ( La Antigua ) was ruined by an earthquake.