Melchor de Mencos

Melchor de Mencos
Coordinates: 17 ° 4 ′ N , 89 ° 9 ′ W Melchor de Mencos on the map of Guatemala	Melchor de Mencos
	Melchor de Mencos
Basic data
Country	Guatemala
Department	Peten
City foundation	April 26, 1962
Residents	18,872 (2002)
- in the metropolitan area	4,000
Detailed data
surface	2098 km 2
Population density	9 people / km 2
height	136 m
Waters	Mopan (river)
Post Code	17011
Time zone	UTC −6
City patron	San Martín de Porres (Festival: October 25th to November 3rd)
	Peténs map
	Border town of Melchor de Mencos

Melchor de Mencos (also Ciudad Melchor de Mencos ) is a small town in Guatemala with about 4000 inhabitants . It lies in the far east of the departments of Petén and is the administrative center of Municipalities Melchor de Mencos which km² extends to 2098 and has about 25,000 inhabitants.

geography

Melchor de Mencos is on the border with Belize . The small town of Benque Viejo del Carmen follows behind the border crossing . The border towns are about 130 m above sea level on the Río Mopán . Melchor de Mencos is connected to Flores , the capital, Peténs, and the rest of Guatemala via the CA 13 road. It is almost 100 km to Flores, almost 600 km to Guatemala City and 130 km to Belize City .

As with all Municipios Peténs, the main town is located on a major traffic axis, while the administrative area extends far into the back, sparsely populated regions. In the case of Melchor de Mencos, this comprises a narrow strip running in a north-south direction along the border with Belize. Adjoining the municipality of Dolores, it begins in the south at 16 ° 49 'north latitude (roughly at the height of Caracol ), in the north it ends at 17 ° 49' on the border with Mexico . The north of the municipality, covered by tropical rainforest , is part of the Reserva de la Biósfera Maya biosphere reserve . The (disputed) border with Belize runs in the east at 89 ° 09 'west longitude, in the west the municipality borders on Santa Ana and Flores (89 ° 20').

population

Due to the cross-border traffic, a colorful mix of people lives in Melchor de Mencos. 85 percent are Ladinos of various origins, 13 percent are Maya of various ethnic groups and two percent belong to the Afro-Caribbean community. The people live from trade and agriculture. The timber industry and the cultivation of maize and beans are important .

The municipality is subdivided into the six “rural communities” ( aldeas ) El Arenal, Cidabenque, El Cruzadero, Tikalito, La Pólvora and La Blanca and these in turn into 36 hamlets.

history

The place Melchor de Mencos was founded in 1869 by an American lumberjack and was then called Fallabón . The name is probably due to a fire and a subsequent explosion, as well as the corruption of the English words fire and boom . Then as now, the place was characterized by through traffic, because in the absence of adequate infrastructure, people traveled from northern Petén via Fallabón to Belize and then on by sea to Puerto Barrios and from there to Guatemala City. Only with the construction of the CA 13 trunk road (and some airfields , including that of Melchor) did the through traffic develop into the current type. Until April 26, 1962, Fallabón and its surroundings belonged to the Municipio of Flores. Then the two Aldeas Fallabón and Plancha de Piedras were merged, separated from Flores and raised to the status of a new small town and municipality of Melchor de Mencos. The new name comes from the officer Melchor de Mencos y Varón, who defeated the British on April 30, 1754 in the battle of the Laguna de Cobá. Because of the emphatic and politically not unjustified claims that Guatemala made on Belize for a long time, the Guatemalan armed forces set up their special unit , the Kaibiles , at a strategically important point in La Pólvora near Melchor de Mencos at the end of 1974 . In 1982 the Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt threatened the neighboring country with a military attack, headed by the Kaibiles. In 1989 their headquarters were moved to Poptún, further south, and in 2008 finally to Puerto Barrios. The bases in La Pólvora and Poptún still exist.

Attractions

The place Melchor de Mencos has no sights. A certain attraction is the Río Mopán , which runs a little to the south . Peten is known for its numerous Mayan ruins , many of which are in the area of the municipality of Melchor de Mencos. The latter, however, are difficult to reach and often not well preserved, on the other hand, less crowded compared to Tikal or Yaxhá . The most important Mayan ruins of the municipality include (from south to north) Chac ha, Naranjo, Chunhuitz, Manantial, Chuuís, Nuevo Holmul, Yaloch, Ceibal II, Chonchkitam and Kinal.

Personalities

Sandra Torres (* 1955), politician

Web links

Websites on inforpressca.com (span.)
History of the municipality (span.)

Commons : Melchor de Mencos - Collection of images, videos and audio files