El Progreso Department

El Progreso
Location of El Progreso in Guatemala
Data
Capital	Guastatoya
population	172,200 (ber. 2016)
surface	1,922 km²
Population density	90 people / km²
Highest elevation	Cerro Pinalón (2,962 m)
ISO 3166-2	GT-PR
Website	Inforpressca.com

El Progreso is a department of Guatemala and is located in the middle of the country (Region III). It extends to almost 2,000 square kilometers and has about 172,200 inhabitants. The capital of the department is Guastatoya , the largest city is Sanarate.

El Progreso borders the Alta Verapaz Department in the north, Zacapa in the east, Jalapa in the southeast , Guatemala Department in the southwest and Baja Verapaz in the northwest .

National nature

El Progreso is one of the hottest and driest departments in the country and is sometimes referred to as the "Desert of Guatemala". At the end of the 19th century, large areas of forest were sacrificed for railway construction. Exceptions are the mountain ranges of the Sierra de las Minas in the north and in the middle the valley of the Río Motagua , the largest river in the country, which opens from west to east and drains large parts of the highlands and flows into the Caribbean in Izabal .

population

Since El Progreso has always been a transit country and the traffic routes between Guatemala City and the Caribbean ports in Izabal run here, the indigenous population and their language in this area have been almost completely displaced. The almost exclusively Spanish- speaking population is concentrated along the Río Motagua and on the main traffic routes. El Progreso is divided into eight Municipios ( large municipalities or districts ):

El Jícaro	Guastatoya
Morazan	Sanarate
Sansare	San Antonio La Paz
San Agustín Acasaguastlán	San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán

As a state administrative district , the department is headed by a governor sent by the central government . The Municipios are independent regional authorities with elected mayors and representatives of the people and are subdivided into Aldeas (rural communities) and Caseríos, Parajes or Fincas ( hamlets and farms ).

economy

Traditionally the most important branches of the economy are agriculture and craft . The most important agricultural products are coffee , sugar cane , tobacco , corn , vegetables and cotton . The products of the numerous small craft businesses include furniture , leather and wicker goods . The tourism develops only sporadically due to the transit traffic. The CA-9 Atlantic route, which connects Guatemala City with the Caribbean port of Puerto Barrios , crosses the department from west to east. El Rancho, where the CA-14 branches off to Cobán in the north , is the department's most important traffic junction. The route of a disused railway line runs south of the Atlantic Road CA-9. It has repeatedly been considered to reactivate them for container traffic. Since no private investors have been found for this project to date and the expansion of the CA-9 into a motorway is only progressing very slowly, the Atlantic route is almost permanently overloaded due to heavy traffic.

Attractions

One of the most beautiful city parks in Guatemala is located in the capital Guastatoya. The construction of a water park ( Parque Acuático Guastatoya ), which opened in 2001, was beneficial for tourism . The Guatemalan workers' welfare organization IRTRA maintains a similar facility a little further west on the CA-9 Atlantic route. 10 km south of Sanarate is the Balneario Poza Los Plátanos with its source areas and natural bathing and recreational opportunities. Mayan ruins can be seen in Guayatán on Motagua, as well as in El Jabillo and Los Bordos, where major ball games took place in the classical period. Attractions of more modern eras are the baroque churches of San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán and San Agustín Acasaguastlán, both of which are not far from the CA-9. The mountains of the Sierra de las Minas in the north await with their rich vegetation and nature reserves, including the forests of La Peña del Ángel and the Cerro El Pinalón, the highest mountain in the department at 2,962 m.

history

Large parts of El Progreso used to belong to Jalapa . The Department El Progreso was established on April 13, 1908, but was dissolved again in 1920. It has existed in its current form since April 3, 1934.

Web links

• Overview of the department (Spanish)

Coordinates: 14 ° 51 ′  N , 90 ° 4 ′  W