Guatemala is a country in the Central America region of North America. It has borders to Mexico in the north/north-west, to Belize in the north-east, to Honduras in the south-east, to El Salvador in the south. It also has a Pacific coastline to the south-west, and a tiny piece of Caribbean coastline to the east.

Guatemala has a rich and distinctive culture from the long mix of elements from Spain and the native Maya people. This diverse history and the natural beauty of the land has created a destination rich in interesting and scenic sites.

It is difficult to travel in the more remote areas during the rainy season between mid-May to mid-October and into mid-November in the north. The elaborate ceremonies in Antigua the week leading up to Easter are a highlight.

The Maya civilization flourished throughout much of Guatemala and the surrounding region for close to 2000 years before the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century. Most of the Great Classic Maya cities of the Petén region of Guatemala's northern lowlands were abandoned by the year 1000 AD. The states of the central highlands, however, were still flourishing until the arrival of the Spanish Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, who brutally subjegated the native states in 1523–1527.

Native peoples of the Guatemala highlands, such as the Cachiquel, Mam, Quiché, and Tzutuhil, still make up a sizable portion of Guatemala's population.

During Spanish colonial rule, most of Central America came under the control of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. The first colonial capital of Guatemala, now called Ciudad Vieja, was ruined by floods and an earthquake in 1542. Survivors founded a second city of Guatemala, now known as La Antigua, in 1543. In the 17th century, Antigua Guatemala became one of the richest capitals in the New World. Always vulnerable to volcanic eruptions, floods, and earthquakes, Antigua was destroyed by two earthquakes in 1773, but the remnants of its Spanish colonial architecture have been preserved as a national monument. The third capital, modern Guatemala City, was founded in 1776, after which Antigua was ordered to be abandoned.

Guatemala's "Liberal Revolution" came in 1871 under the leadership of Justo Rufino Barrios, who worked to modernize the country, improve trade, and introduce new crops and manufacturing. During this era coffee became an important crop for Guatemala. Barrios had ambitions of reuniting Central America and took the country to war in an unsuccessful attempt to attain this; he died on the battle field in 1885.

The Early 20th Century

The United Fruit Company started becoming a major force in Guatemala in 1901, during the long presidency of Manuel José Estrada Cabrera. Government was often subservient to Company interests. While the company helped with building some schools, it also opposed building highways because this would compete with its railroad monopoly. The UFC controlled over 40% of the country's best land and its port facilities.

The "Ten Years of Spring"

In 1944, General Jorge Ubico's dictatorship was overthrown by the "October Revolutionaries", a group of dissident military officers, students, and liberal professionals. This started what is called The Ten Years of Spring, a period of free speech and political activity, proposed land reform, and a perception that great progress could be made in Guatemala. A civilian president, Juan José Arévalo, was elected in 1945 and held the presidency until 1951. Social reforms initiated by Arévalo were continued by his successor, Colonel Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz permitted the communist Guatemalan Party of Labour legal status in 1952. This greatly upset the U.S. government which denounced the communist tendency of Guatemalan government and decided the Arbenz government had to be overthrown. Despite most Guatemalans' attachment to the original ideals of the 1944 uprising, some private sector leaders and the military adhered to the US-imposed ideas about communist threat and started to view Arbenz's policies as a menace. The army refused to defend the Arbenz government when a US-backed group led by Col. Carlos Castillo Armas invaded the country from Honduras in 1954 and quickly took over the government.

Civil war

In response to the increasingly autocratic rule of Gen. Ydígoras Fuentes, who took power in 1958 following the murder of Col. Castillo Armas, a group of junior military officers revolted in 1960. When they failed, several went into hiding and established close ties with Cuba. This group became the nucleus of the forces that were in armed insurrection against the government for the next 36 years.

Four principal left-wing guerrilla groups — the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), the Revolutionary Organization of Armed People (ORPA), the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), and the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT) — conducted economic sabotage and targeted government installations and members of government security forces in armed attacks. These organizations combined to form the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) in 1982. At the same time, extreme right-wing groups of self-appointed vigilantes, including the Secret Anti-Communist Army (ESA) and the White Hand, tortured and murdered students, professionals, and peasants suspected of involvement in leftist activities.

Shortly after President Julio César Méndez Montenegro took office in 1966, the army launched a major counterinsurgency campaign that largely broke up the guerrilla movement in the countryside. The guerrillas then concentrated their attacks in Guatemala City, where they assassinated many leading figures, including U.S. Ambassador John Gordon Mein in 1968. Between 1966 and 1982, there were a series of military or military-dominated governments.

On March 23, 1982, army troops commanded by junior officers staged a coup d'état to prevent the assumption of power by General Ángel Aníbal Guevara, the hand-picked candidate of outgoing President and General Romeo Lucas García. They denounced Guevara's electoral victory as fraudulent. The coup leaders asked retired Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt to negotiate the departure of Lucas and Guevara. Ríos Montt had been the candidate of the Christian Democracy Party in the 1974 presidential elections and was widely regarded as having been denied his own victory through fraud.

Ríos Montt was by this time a lay pastor in the evangelical protestant Church of the Word. In his inaugural address, he stated that his presidency resulted from the will of God. He was widely perceived as having strong backing from the Reagan administration in the United States. He formed a three-member military junta that annulled the 1965 constitution, dissolved Congress, suspended political parties and cancelled the electoral law. After a few months, Ríos Montt dismissed his junta colleagues and assumed the de facto title of "President of the Republic".

Guerrilla forces and their leftist allies denounced Ríos Montt. Ríos Montt sought to defeat the guerrillas with military actions and economic reforms; in his words, "rifles and beans". In May 1982, the Conference of Catholic Bishops accused Ríos Montt of responsibility for growing militarization of the country and for continuing military massacres of civilians. General Ríos Montt was quoted in the New York Times of July 18, 1982 as telling an audience of indigenous Guatemalans, "If you are with us, we'll feed you; if not, we'll kill you." The Plan de Sánchez massacre occurred on the same day.

The government began to form local civilian defense patrols (PACs). Participation was in theory voluntary, but in practice, many Guatemalans, especially in the northwest, had no choice but to join either the PACs or the guerrillas. Ríos Montt's conscript army and PACs recaptured essentially all guerrilla territory — guerrilla activity lessened and was largely limited to hit-and-run operations. However, Ríos Montt won this partial victory at an enormous cost in civilian deaths.

Ríos Montt's brief presidency was probably the most violent period of the 36-year internal conflict, which resulted in about 200,000 deaths of mostly unarmed indigenous civilians. Although leftist guerrillas and right-wing death squads also engaged in summary executions, forced disappearances, and torture of noncombatants, the vast majority of human rights violations were carried out by the Guatemalan military and the PACs they controlled. The internal conflict is described in great detail in the reports of the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) and the Archbishop's Office for Human Rights (ODHAG). The CEH estimates that government forces were responsible for 93% of the violations; ODHAG earlier estimated that government forces were responsible for 80%.

On August 8, 1983, Ríos Montt was deposed by his own Minister of Defense, General Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores, who succeeded him as de facto president of Guatemala. Mejía justified his coup, saying that "religious fanatics" were abusing their positions in the government and also because of "official corruption". Seven people were killed in the coup, although Ríos Montt survived to found a political party (the Guatemalan Republic Front) and to be elected President of Congress in 1995 and 2000. Awareness in the United States of the conflict in Guatemala, and its ethnic dimension, increased with the 1983 publication of the autobiographical account I, Rigoberta Menchú, An Indian Woman in Guatemala; Rigoberta Menchú was later awarded the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in favor of broader social justice.

General Mejía allowed a managed return to democracy in Guatemala, starting with a July 1, 1984 election for a Constituent Assembly to draft a democratic constitution. On May 30, 1985, after nine months of debate, the Constituent Assembly finished drafting a new constitution, which took effect immediately. Vinicio Cerezo, a civilian politician and the presidential candidate of the Christian Democracy Party, won the first election held under the new constitution with almost 70% of the vote, and took office on January 14, 1986.

Guatemala's main airport, La Aurora International Airport, is near Guatemala City. International flights arrive mostly from other Central American countries and North America. Guatemala's second airport is situated in Flores, Petén. This small airport receives flights from a small number of close destinations including Belize, Mexico City and Guatemala City.

The national currency is Quetzal(es). The rate of change is approximately 8 Quetzales for 1 US Dollar. It is not common to use dollars in everyday life. You will most likely have difficulties in changing other currencies than US Dollars.

It is common to bargain for the typical tourist purchases. If a store has fixed prices for these type of products, you will see a sign saying so (precios fijos).