Izabal Department

Izabal
Location of Izabal in Guatemala
Data
Capital	Puerto Barrios
population	467,000 (ber. 2016)
surface	9,038 km²
Population density	52 inhabitants / km²
ISO 3166-2	GT-IZ
Website	Inforpressca.com
Lake Izabal

Izabal is a department of Guatemala and is located in the northeast of the country (Region III). Izabal extends over 9,000 square kilometers and has about 467,000 inhabitants. The capital of the department is Puerto Barrios .

National nature

With Izabal, Guatemala has a small access to the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean . In the north, close Belize and Petén to, on the west borders Izabal Alta Verapaz , on the south by Zacapa and Honduras . In the middle of the department lies the largest lake in Guatemala, the 48 km long and 20 km wide Lago de Izabal . It is surrounded by the low mountain range Sierra Santa Cruz in the northwest, the foothills of the Sierra de las Minas in the southwest and the Montañas del Mico in the east. The numerous rivers coming from these mountains mostly flow into Lake Izabal, which is connected to the Caribbean by the Río Dulce. The southeast of the department is crossed by the valley of the Río Motagua . A large part of the central highlands is drained via this longest river in Guatemala, in Izabal also the south-eastern mountain ranges and the Sierra del Merendón on the border with Honduras.

The climate of Izabal is largely tropical due to its location on the Caribbean and the lowlands around Lago de Izabal and the Motagua Valley, with high rainfall in the summer months. The weather can also be relatively changeable in the other months of the year. Temperatures in the lowlands range between 24 and 34 ° C, and the climate is somewhat cooler at higher altitudes. The very rich vegetation includes tropical rainforest , palm trees , orchids , cypresses , bromeliads etc. There are several large nature reserves.

population

A large part of the population speaks Kekchí or Garifuna in addition to Spanish . On the Caribbean coast, and especially in Livingston , live Garifunas , an Afro-Caribbean community. They came to the Caribbean as slaves and then from the island of Roatán to Guatemala at the end of the 18th century . The approximately 400,000 inhabitants of the Izabal department live in five municipalities ( large communities or districts ):

Puerto Barrios	Livingston
Los amates	Morales
El Estor

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 branch of the economy is agriculture and especially the cultivation of bananas . In this area, the heavily criticized United Fruit Company played an ambiguous role in the mid-20th century. Other agricultural products include rice , beans , corn , citrus fruits and other tropical fruits. Livestock and handicrafts are also important . Tourism is becoming more and more important, especially on the Río Dulce and Lake Izabal, where yacht owners from North America and Europe have now settled. The seaports of Puerto Barrios and Puerto Santo Tomás de Castilla are of outstanding economic importance : A large part of overseas trade with North America and Europe is carried out here. In the absence of an adequate rail connection, all container traffic is handled by semi- trailers, which leads to permanent congestion on the CA-9 Atlantic route. Their expansion into a motorway is making slow progress. The capital, Puerto Barrios, has an airfield for general aviation .

Attractions

Starting points for boat trips on Lake Izabal and towards the Caribbean are the places Fronteras (also called Río Dulce) and El Relleno at the bridge over the Río Dulce. South of Fronteras (Río Dulce), at the beginning of Lake Izabal, is the Castillo de San Felipe de Lara, a fortress that the Spaniards built in the 16th century to defend against attacks by English pirates . On the north shore of the lake is the Finca El Paraíso with a horse breeding facility and the Río Agua Caliente with its natural thermal water pools . Further to the west is the town of El Estor, whose name comes from a former British-German general store that was called "The Store" at the time. On the Golfete, the widest section of the Río Dulce, the untouched lagoons and forests of the Biotopo Chocón Machacas have been placed under nature protection. At the mouth of the Río Dulce in the Caribbean is Livingston, a village where Garifunas, Ladinos, Mayans and whites live. The Bahía de Amatique has only a few beaches, including Playa Blanca, Punta de Palma and Punta de Manabique. The thermal water pools "Siete Altares" are located between Playa Blanca and Livingston. Near Los Amates, in the Parque Nacional Cerro Azul, there is the Mayan ruins Quiriguá , which is a World Heritage Site .

history

Because of its protected access to the sea and its ports and warehouses on Lake Izabal, Izabal has always played an important role in Guatemala's economy. Because of this, it suffered from pirate attacks for a long time. During the colonial period, the area belonged to the "Corregimiento de Chiquimula de la Sierra". After independence, it initially formed an administrative district. From 1842 to 1854 almost half of the district was a Belgian concession area, and Belgian colonists settled in Santo Tomás de Castilla .

On May 18, 1866, the government of the Republic of Guatemala founded the Department of Izabal. During the reign of Justo Rufino Barrios Auyón (1873-1885) the construction of the railway line from Guatemala City to the later Caribbean port of Puerto Barrios began. The line was not completed until 1908. In the years that followed, Izabal became the most important banana-growing area of ​​the United Fruit Company , which on the one hand made a significant contribution to the improvement of the economy and infrastructure of Izabal, but on the other hand developed into a state within a state that unrestrainedly exploited the position of power it had gained, especially in financial and political terms. After the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in particular tried to put the UFC in its place and distribute unused UFC land to penniless farmers, the UFC leadership and its affiliated political circles in Washington, DC accused Arbenz of communist overthrow. This led to US intervention and ultimately to the civil war . Numerous closed narrow-gauge railway lines in the Motagua Valley as well as several settlements with English names, including Dartmouth and York, testify to the UFC era.

Web links

• Overview of the department (Spanish)

Coordinates: 15 ° 44 ′  N , 88 ° 36 ′  W