Other Definitions
guatemala (dest)
guatemala (enc)
guatemala (dict)
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GuatemalaThe Nahuatl expression Quauhtitlan, which means "between the trees," gave the name to what we now know as Guatemala. That was the name the Tlaxcaltec soldiers who accompanied Pedro de Alvarado during the Spanish Conquest gave to this territory, perhaps translating into their language the word "Quiche," which means "many trees." The origin of the name Guatemala alludes to its natural riches, and rightly so. This country, with only 108,889 square kilometers, is one of the regions with the greatest biological diversity in the world. Its geographical location, in the northern part of the "bridge" which joins the Americas, favors it in this sense. It permitted a genetic exchange between the continental masses of North and South America, which had been separated for millions of years. Its topography with altitudes up to more than 4,000 meters above sea level and its coasts on the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, as well as its rainfall (from 500 to 5000 mm), make Guatemala one of the centers of greatest diversity in the natural production of genetic resources in the world. In scientific circles these are known as "Vavilov Centers." To conserve its natural heritage in situ and to protect the beauty of its landscapes, Guatemala established its first National Parks in 1955. Today, the country has more than thirty legally declared protected areas and more than forty areas being proposed. All of them cover a broad range of natural regions, from forests to mangrove swamps on both coasts to cloud forests in the mountains. They also include regions which are practically unchanged, such as the summits of the Sierra de las Minas, and others where humans interact with nature, such as Lake Atitlan. Among Guatemala's protected areas there are from small parks of natural and cultural interest, such as Iximche or Quirigua, to large Biosphere Reserves, such as the Maya Reserve in the north of the country, covering close to two million hectares, which includes seven National Parks and Protected Biotopes, various settlements and hundreds of important archaeological sites. Its natural beauty and the efforts being made to conserve it make Guatemala one of the most attractive destinations for the tourist oriented toward nature, and more so when this heritage contains a mixture of cultural riches, represented by pre-hispanic and pre-colonial vestiges and monuments, in addition to more than twenty living native cultures. With courtesy of the Guatemala Tourist Commission
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