Santiago Atitlán (, from Nahuatl ''atitlan'', "at the water", in Tz'utujil ''Tz'ikin Jaay'', "birdhouse") is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

in the

Sololá department Sololá is a department in the west of Guatemala. The capital is the city of Sololá. Lake Atitlan is a key feature surrounded by a number of the municipalities. Municipalities # Concepción # Nahualá # Panajachel # San Andrés Semetaba ...

of Guatemala. The town is situated on

Lake Atitlán Lake Atitlán ( es, links=no, Lago de Atitlán, ) is a lake in the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre mountain range. The lake is located in the Sololá Department of southwestern Guatemala. It is known as the deepest lake in Central Ameri ...

, which has an elevation of . The town sits on a bay of Lake Atitlán between two volcanoes. Volcán San Pedro rises to west of the town and Volcan Toliman rises to southeast of the town.

Volcán Atitlán Volcán Atitlán () is a large, conical, active stratovolcano adjacent to the caldera of Lake Atitlán in the Guatemalan Highlands of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas range. It is within the Sololá Department, southwestern Guatemala. The volcano ...

, with an elevation of , is south-southeast of the town. Santiago Atitlan is southwest of

Panajachel Panajachel (, Pana) is a town in the southwestern Guatemalan Highlands, less than from Guatemala City, in the department of Sololá. It serves as the administrative centre for the surrounding municipality of the same name. The elevation is . ...

across the lake. Major highways reach Lake Atitlán at San Lucas Toliman and Panajachel. A road links Santiago to San Lucas Tolliman. Boats connect the numerous communities around the lake. The majority of the residents are

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a popul ...

. It was the capital of the

Tz'utujil people Tz'utujil (), Tzutujil, Tzutuhil, Sutujil, and Zutuhil may refer to * Tz'utujil people, an ethnic subgroup of the Maya * Tz'utujil language, spoken by those people {{disamb Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

times and its name was Chuitinamit. Santiago Atitlán is the home of the Cojolya Weaving Center and Museum, founded by the Cojolya Association of Maya Women Weavers. The museum shows the history, tradition, and process of backstrap-loom weaving, the evolution of the traditional costume of the Tzutujil, and tells about the indigenous people of Santiago Atitlán. Santiago Atitlán was the site of considerable state-sponsored violence during the country's

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. Some of the most notable incidents that occurred during the war include the assassination of Roman Catholic priest

Stanley Rother Stanley Francis Rother ( ; March 27, 1935 – July 28, 1981) was an American Roman Catholic priest from Oklahoma who was murdered in Guatemala in 1981. He had worked as a missionary priest there since 1968. He held several parish assignments as ...

by right-wing death squads on 28 July 1981, and the massacre of 14 people (and wounding of 21 others) when the

Guatemalan Army The Guatemalan Armed Forces ( es, Fuerzas Armadas de Guatemala) consists of the National Army of Guatemala (''Ejercito Nacional de Guatemala'', ENG), the Guatemalan National Defense Navy (''Marina de la Defensa Nacional'', includes Marines), the ...

opened fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians on 2 December 1990.

References

External links

*
Cojolya Weaving Center and Museum

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santiago Atitlan Municipalities of the Sololá Department Tz'utujil people