Petén Department

El Petén
El Petén
Coordinates: 16°54′N 89°54′W / 16.9°N 89.9°W / 16.9; -89.9
Country	Guatemala
Department	El Petén
Capital	Flores
Municipalities	12
Government
- Type	Departmental
- Governor
Area
- Department	35,854 km2 (13,843.3 sq mi)
Population (Census 2002)[1]
- Department	366,735
- Urban	110,399
- Ethnicities	Ladino, Mopan, Lacandon, Itza, Q'eqchi'
- Religions	Roman Catholicism, Evangelicalism
Time zone	-6 (UTC)

Petén is a department of the nation of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest in size — at 12,960 square miles (33,566 km²) it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population in 2005 was estimated at 450,000.

History

Nakbé, Mid Preclassic (600 BC) Palace remains, The Mirador Basin

By the first half of the 1st millennium BC, the Petén and Mirador Basin of this region were already well-established with a number of monumental sites and cities of the Maya civilization. Significant Maya sites of this Preclassic era of Mesoamerican chronology include Nakbé, El Mirador, Naachtun, San Bartolo and Cival in the Mirador Basin.

Carved altar from El Perú (Waka') in Guatemala.

Later, Petén became the heartland of the Maya Classic Period (c. 200 – 900). At its height around 750 it is estimated that Petén was home to several million people, being one of the most densely populated regions of the world at the time. Some areas are estimated to have had ca 2,000 people/km². Agriculture was very extensive, and there is some evidence suggesting that the land was depleted by unsustainable over-farming, resulting in a famine which was an important factor in the collapse of the Classic Maya states of this area. The population is estimated to have dropped by two-thirds between the mid 9th century and the mid 10th century.

Tikal rising above jungle canopy

Archaeological sites such as Uaxactún, Tikal, Holmul, La Sufricaya, Machaquilá, Naranjo, Nakum, Piedras Negras, Altar de Sacrificios on the Usumacinta river, Waka' formerly El Perú, on the San Pedro Mártir river, Ceibal, Aguateca, in the Petexbatún area, Cancuén, on La Pasión river, Topoxté and Yaxhá preserve important remnants of the Classic Maya in Petén.

The first UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world was Tikal, and later Tikal National Park, was the first Mixed Archeologic and Natural World Heritage Site in the World.

After the Classic collapse the population of the area continued to drop dramatically, especially after the introduction of smallpox along with European explorers. The smallpox plague arrived around 1519 or 1520, preceding by several years the first Europeans to visit the region. Hernán Cortés led the first expedition to pass through Petén, in 1524 to 1525, and reported that the region mostly had small hamlets separated by thick forest, with Tayasal being the only sizable inhabited city they observed.

After Cortés' expedition, the Spanish largely tried to conquer Petén, with several attempts mainly from Belize and Alta Verapaz, for generations until an expedition from Yucatán, Belize and Cobán in Alta Verapaz, succeeded in conquering the last independent Maya polities around 1697, such as Zacpeten (capital of the Ko'woj Maya), the Itza Maya center of Tayasal, and other towns in the Lake Petén Itza region such as Quexil (modern Spanish name; in Maya, Ek'ixil) and Yalain. (see: Spanish conquest of Yucatán).

The Spanish town of Flores was established atop the site of Tayasal, but this remained an isolated backwater through the colonial era and after the independence Central America. When Guatemalan President Rafael Carrera sent a small force to Flores to claim the region for Guatemala in the 1840s, the governments of Mexico and Yucatán decided the region was not worth the trouble of contesting.

Starting in the 1960s the Guatemalan government offered land in Petén to any citizen willing to settle on it and pay a fee of $25. A road was opened up to Flores, although it was unpaved, and the notorious bus trip to Flores was known to take up to 24 hours to travel the 300 miles (500 km). Small airports were built at Flores and Tikal, bringing tourists to the region. In the early 1970s a road was opened from Tikal to Belize.

The first paved road in Petén was built in 1982. The Mundo Maya International Airport, in Santa Elena, is the second of the country. Since the 1990s many new settlers have come to Petén. The area is also experiencing severe deforestation in its southern half. Deforestation has been particularly rapid near Laguna Del Tigre National Park in western Petén^[2]. To combat deforestation, Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom has proposed dramatically expanding ecotourism around Maya archaeological sites, especially El Mirador, and trying to further develop an agricultural system in the southern portion of the Maya Biosphere Reserve that will prevent further northward migration^[3]. He calls his plan "Cuatro Balam."

Municipalities

Petén consists of the following municipalities, listed with their population in 2000:

1. Dolores – 26,269
2. Flores – 22,594
3. La Libertad – 79,416
4. Melchor de Mencos – 23,813
5. Poptún – 30,386
6. San Andrés – 15,103
7. San Benito – 23,752
8. San Francisco – 8,066
9. San José – 3,602
10. San Luis – 44,903
11. Santa Ana – 7,792
12. Sayaxché – 47,693

See also

• El Zotz
• Ixkun

References

External links

• Interactive department map
• Map of Petén department from Prensa Libre
• Untold Stories, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
• Future of Peten

v • d • e Departments of Guatemala Alta Verapaz • Baja Verapaz • Chimaltenango • Chiquimula • El Petén • El Progreso • El Quiché • Escuintla • Guatemala • Huehuetenango • Izabal • Jalapa • Jutiapa • Quetzaltenango • Retalhuleu • Sacatepéquez • San Marcos • Santa Rosa • Sololá • Suchitepéquez • Totonicapán • Zacapa