Chisec

Chisec
Coordinates: 15 ° 49 ′ N , 90 ° 19 ′ W Chisec on the map of Guatemala	Chisec
	Chisec
Basic data
Country	Guatemala
Department	Alta Verapaz
City foundation	1883
Residents	40,000
- in the metropolitan area	13,500
	City insignia
Detailed data
surface	around 1000 km²
height	240 m
Post Code	16013
Time zone	UTC −6
City patron	San Pedro y San Pablo (Festival: June 29th)
	; Image wanted

Chisec is a small town in Guatemala and the administrative seat of the large municipality of the same name ( Municipio ) in the Alta Verapaz department . Around 40,000 people live in the approximately 1000 km² municipality, and around 14,000 in Chisec.

geography

Chisec is located in the north of Alta Verapaz at an altitude of 240 m. The southern part of the municipality is reached by the foothills of the Sierra de Chamá , one of the low mountain ranges that cross the central and southern part of Alta Verapaz. In the northeast, Chisec still has a share of the hills of the Sierra de Chinajá . The remaining parts of the municipality are in the tropical lowlands. The notable waters here include the rivers Sequixpur, San Simón, San Román, Limón and, in the north-west, the Río Chixoy, as well as the Pantano Rubelsuj wetland and the Laguna Sapalau in the south-east . The climate is generally tropical and hot.

Chisec borders in the south with the municipality of San Pedro Carchá , in the southwest and west with Cobán , in the northwest with the department Quiché (the Chixoy forms the short border) and in the north with the department Peten . Until 2008 it bordered the municipality of Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas in the east . In that year the rural community of Raxruhá , which formed the eastern part of Chisec, was raised to a separate municipality. Chisec lost a third of its territory and almost half of its inhabitants. The information about the current area of the municipality is inconsistent, around 1,000 km² can be assumed. Until 2008, Chisec was the second largest municipality in Alta Verapaz after Cobán.

population

Most of the population belongs to the Maya ethnic group Kekchí , the rest are Ladinos .

history

Chisec is only mentioned in official documents from 1883. It may have been founded a few decades before by people from San Pedro Carchá to the south under the name "Espiritu Santo".

Between 1979 and 1983 Chisec was so badly affected by the Guatemalan civil war that almost the entire population of the municipality fled, mostly to nearby Mexico . On the Finca Xaman in the Comunidad La Aurora 8 de Octubre perpetrated a massacre on 5 October 1995 ( massacre of Xaman ).

Economy and Transport

Chisec is just under 80 km north of Cobán , the capital of Alta Verapaz. From there it can be reached via a partially poorly developed direct connection (via Cubilhuitz), or alternatively a little further east via national road 5 and Raxruhá. To attract tourists, Chisec likes to call itself the gateway to the tropical lowlands, although the national road 5, which continues to Petén, is now closer to Raxruhá. The east-west trunk road Franja Transversal del Norte , which runs from Izabal in the east to Chisec and from there to Huehuetenango in the west, is of great importance in terms of traffic engineering and also from an economic point of view . The most important branch of the economy is agriculture, with coffee , corn and rice being grown . The festival in honor of the city patrons Peter and Paul , which is celebrated from June 26th to 29th, is of touristic importance . In the rest of the municipality, in addition to the Laguna Sapalau , numerous caves are worth seeing (in one of these there is a Maya cemetery ). The "Laguna Lachuá National Park" ( Rokjá Pomtilá ) is located west of Chisec on the territory of the Municipios Cobán.

Web links

Official websites (span.)
Tourist information (span.)