Santiago Atitlán (, from

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

''atitlan'', "at the water", in Tz'utujil ''Tz'ikin Jaay'', "birdhouse") 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

Sololá department __NOTOC__ Sololá is a city in Guatemala. It is the capital of the department of Sololá and the administrative seat of Sololá municipality. It is located close to Lake Atitlan. The name is a Hispanicized form of its pre-Columbian name, one sp ...

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 ...

Geography

The town is situated on

Lake Atitlán Lake 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 America. Name Atitlán means "betwe ...

, 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, in southwestern Guatemala. The volcan ...

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

Panajachel Panajachel (, Pana) is a town in the southwestern part of the Guatemalan Highlands, less than from Guatemala City, in the Departments of Guatemala, department of Sololá (department), Sololá. It serves as the administrative centre for the surro ...

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.

Climate

Santiago Atitlán has a

tropical savanna climate Tropical savanna climate or tropical wet and dry climate is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification categories ''Aw'' (for a dry "winter") and ''As'' (for a dry "summer"). The driest month has less than ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

: ''Aw'') with warm days and cool nights. Santiago Atitlán has a

wet season The wet season (sometimes called the rainy season or monsoon season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. Generally, the season lasts at least one month. The term ''green season'' is also sometimes used a ...

extending from May to October. The rainiest months are typically June and September.

Demography

The majority of the residents are

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

. 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 Tz'utujil (), Tzutujil, Tzutuhil, Sutujil, and Zutuhil may refer to * Tz'utujil people, an ethnic subgrou ...

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

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.

History

Santiago Atitlán was the site of considerable state-sponsored violence during the country's

civil war A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, 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.J ...

. Some of the most notable incidents that occurred during the war include the assassination of Roman Catholic priest Stanley Rother 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 () is the unified military organization comprising the Guatemalan Army, Navy, Air Force, and Presidential Honor Guard. The president of Guatemala is the commander-in-chief of the military, and formulates policy, tra ...

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