El Palmar is a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
in the
Quetzaltenango department of
Guatemala
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...
which has a population of 32,065.
El Palmar is mostly an agricultural municipality, with coffee being one of its main products.
Many years ago, El Palmar was nearly destroyed by a volcanic eruption of the Santiaguito volcano. Nuevo El Palmar was founded a few kilometers away where most people re-settled. Some inhabitants chose to stay or go back to the original town.
The original town was nearly destroyed again by another volcanic eruption in the late 1990s. The inhabitants were given the alternative to re-settle in El Nuevo Palmar by the Guatemalan government. Those who chose to stay would do so at their own risk. Those who re-settled in El Nuevo Palmar did so into the suburbs of this town. A few months later, the entire town was destroyed by another flood of mud from a volcanic eruption. The old town is still declared a risk zone and anyone who enters does so under their own risk.
In October 2005 a bridge was destroyed here by
Hurricane Stan
Hurricane Stan was the deadliest tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. A relatively weak system that affected areas of Central America and Mexico in early October 2005, Stan was the eighteenth named storm and eleventh hurric ...
, cutting off a large portion of the southwest region from the rest of the country. It has since been restored.
Climate
El Palmar has a
tropical monsoon climate
An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate subtype that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ' ...
(Am) with moderate to little rainfall from December to March and heavy to very heavy rainfall year-round from April to November and extremely heavy rainfall in September.
References
{{coord, 14.65, N, 91.5833, W, source:kolossus-itwiki, display=title
Municipalities of the Quetzaltenango Department