Guatemala

The lowland forests of Petén hold some of the oldest and largest Maya cities. El Mirador, in the far north, flourished in the Preclassic period more than two thousand years ago, with pyramids such as La Danta that rank among the largest structures of the ancient world by volume.

Tikal rose in the Classic period (about AD 200–900) to become one of the dominant powers of the Maya lowlands, in a long rivalry with Calakmul in today's Mexico. Its temples, rising above the canopy, were funerary monuments for rulers such as Jasaw Chan K'awiil.

From the 9th century the southern lowland cities were abandoned, a collapse linked to drought, warfare and overpopulation. The Itzá kingdom at Nojpetén, today's Flores, held out against the Spanish until 1697, the last independent Maya state.

Laser mapping (lidar) since 2018 has revealed tens of thousands of structures, roads and farm terraces under the forest, showing that the Maya lowlands were far more densely settled than once believed.

Pedro de Alvarado, a lieutenant of Cortés, invaded the highlands in 1524, defeating the K'iche' and then turning on his Kaqchikel allies. The first Spanish capital near Iximché was moved after revolts, and its successor was destroyed by a mudflow from Volcán de Agua in 1541.

The third capital, Santiago de los Caballeros, today's Antigua, was founded in 1543 in the Panchoy valley. For two centuries it governed the Kingdom of Guatemala, which reached from Chiapas to Costa Rica, and filled with convents, churches and a university.

Earthquakes repeatedly damaged the city, and after the Santa Marta quakes of 1773 the Crown ordered the capital moved to the Valley of the Hermitage, today's Guatemala City. Antigua was partly abandoned, which is why its ruined churches still stand among restored houses.

Antigua became a World Heritage site in 1979. Strict rules on building heights, colours and signs keep the grid of cobbled streets under the three volcanoes of Agua, Fuego and Acatenango.

About two in five Guatemalans are Maya, from more than twenty language groups such as K'iche', Q'eqchi', Kaqchikel and Mam. Most others are ladino, a word for Spanish-speaking people of mixed or European descent. Garífuna communities live on the Caribbean coast and Xinka people in the south-east.

In 1954 a CIA-backed coup overthrew President Jacobo Árbenz, whose land reform had touched the holdings of the United Fruit Company. Guerrilla movements formed in the 1960s, and the military's counter-insurgency grew into a war on Maya villages in the early 1980s.

A UN-backed truth commission found that about 200,000 people were killed or disappeared, most of them Maya, and that state forces committed acts of genocide. Peace accords were signed in 1996. Former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide in 2013, though the verdict was later annulled on procedure.

Rigoberta Menchú, a K'iche' activist, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Today many Maya communities organise around land, water and mining disputes, and Indigenous authorities played a central role in defending the 2023 election result.

Maya women in the highlands still weave and wear the huipil, a blouse whose patterns identify the village. Backstrap looms, tied to a post and the weaver's waist, are the traditional tool; foot looms are used by men for cloth and skirts (cortes).

Corn is sacred in the Popol Vuh, the K'iche' book of creation, where the gods make humans from maize dough. Tortillas, tamales and atol (warm corn drinks) remain the base of daily food.

Recados, thick sauces made from roasted seeds, chillies, tomatoes and toasted tortillas, flavour dishes such as pepián and jocón. On 1 November families prepare fiambre, a cold salad of dozens of ingredients for All Saints' Day.

Coffee grown on volcanic slopes around Antigua, Atitlán and Huehuetenango is among the most prized in the world, and cardamom from Alta Verapaz makes Guatemala one of the world's biggest exporters of the spice.

Guatemala sits where the Cocos, North American and Caribbean plates meet, and a chain of 37 volcanoes runs parallel to the Pacific coast. Fuego, Pacaya and Santiaguito are the most active. Fuego's eruption on 3 June 2018 sent pyroclastic flows into villages and killed hundreds of people.

Lake Atitlán fills a caldera left by a huge eruption about 84,000 years ago, ringed by the volcanoes San Pedro, Tolimán and Atitlán. Its water level rises and falls over decades, and pollution and algae blooms worry the lake villages.

Alta Verapaz is wet, green cloud forest, home to the quetzal, the national bird that gives the currency its name. At Semuc Champey the Cahabón river runs underground beneath a limestone bridge topped with pools.

Petén's lowland forest belongs to the Maya Biosphere Reserve, the largest protected area in Central America, under pressure from cattle ranching, fires and trafficking.

Bernardo Arévalo, son of the country's first democratically elected president of the 1940s, won the 2023 election on an anti-corruption platform. Prosecutors tried to suspend his party and annul the result, and weeks of Indigenous-led protests helped secure his inauguration in January 2024.

Gang violence, extortion of bus drivers and shopkeepers, and drug trafficking along the Mexican border drive the country's security problems. After a mass prison escape in 2025 and attacks on police, the government declared a 30-day nationwide state of siege in January 2026, with checkpoints and wider police powers.

For visitors the tourist triangle of Antigua, Atitlán and Tikal works well with tourist shuttles and a domestic flight. Guatemala shares a 90-day visa-free allowance with El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua under the CA-4 agreement.

Remittances from Guatemalans in the United States make up about a fifth of the economy, and US migration policy is felt directly in the highland towns where many families have someone abroad.