El Progreso () is a department in

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 ...

. The departmental capital is Guastatoya. The Spanish established themselves in the region by 1551, after the

Spanish conquest of Guatemala In a protracted conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonisers gradually incorporated the territory that became the modern country of Guatemala into the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. Before the conquest, this te ...

. El Progreso was declared a department in 1908, but was dissolved in 1920 before being reestablished in 1934. Guastatoya was badly affected by the

1976 Guatemala earthquake The 1976 Guatemala earthquake struck on February 4 at with a moment magnitude of 7.5. The shock was centered on the Motagua Fault, about 160 km northeast of Guatemala City at a depth of near the town of Los Amates in the department of ...

. The department is located in northeastern Guatemala. It is bordered by the departments of

Alta Verapaz Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and ...

Baja Verapaz Baja Verapaz () is a department in Guatemala. In 2018, the population of the department was 299,476. The capital is Salamá. 78.5% of the department’s population identifies as Maya, with 53% belonging to the Achi linguistic group. Baja Verap ...

, Jalapa, and

Zacapa Zacapa () is the departmental capital municipality of Zacapa Department, one of the 22 Departments of Guatemala. It is located approximately from Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capit ...

. The department occupies an intermediate zone between the hot lowlands and the cooler

Guatemalan Highlands The Guatemalan Highlands is an upland region in southern Guatemala which lies between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north. Geographic description The Highlands lie between 6360 ft and 13780 ft and are ...

, and has a generally hot climate. The most important river is the Motagua. To the north, the department is crossed by the

Sierra de las Minas Sierra de las Minas is a mountain range in eastern Guatemala which extends 130 km west of the Lake Izabal. It is 15–30 km wide and bordered by the valleys of the Polochic River in the north and the Motagua River in the south. Its we ...

mountain range. The main population centres in El Progreso are Guastatoya, Sanarate and

San Agustín Acasaguastlán San Agustín Acasaguastlán () is a town and a municipality in the El Progreso 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 ...

. The CA-9 Atlantic Highway links the department with

Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...

and the Atlantic port of Puerto Barrios. The vast majority of the population of the department are Spanish-speaking Ladinos. The population is growing, but at a rate below the national average. At the same time, the illiteracy rate is falling.

History

Historically, the area now included in the department of El Progreso was known as ''Guastatoya'' or ''Huastatoya'', derived 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 ...

''huäxyötl'' or ''huäxin'' ("

calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvest ...

") and ''atoyac'' ("last"), meaning the last place that calabashes grow, a reference to the change in altitude that occurs in the department, and corresponding climatic change from cold to hot.

Early history

The Spanish colonial ''

corregimiento ''Corregimiento'' (; , ) is a Spanish term used for country subdivisions for royal administrative purposes, ensuring districts were under crown control as opposed to local elites. A ''corregimiento'' was usually headed by a '' corregidor''. The ...

'' of

San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán () is a town in the El Progreso department of Guatemala. San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán is located on the northern bank of the Motagua River at an altitude of 250 m. It had a population of 6,129 people at the 20 ...

was established in 1551 with its seat in the town of that name, in what is now the eastern portion of the modern department. Most of the area of the modern department fell within the corregimiento of Chiquimula. Acasaguastlán was one of few pre-conquest centres of population in the middle

Motagua River The Motagua River () is a river in Guatemala. It rises in the Western Highlands of Guatemala and runs in an easterly direction to the Gulf of Honduras. The Motagua River basin covers an area of and is the largest in Guatemala. The Motagua Riv ...

drainage, due to the arid climate.Feldman 1998, p. 29. In El Progreso it included San Agustín de la Real Corona (modern

) and La Magdalena, but covered a broad area that also included parts of Baja Verapaz and Zacapa. San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán and the surrounding area were reduced into colonial settlements by friars of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

; at the time of the conquest the area was inhabited by Poqomchi' Maya and by the Nahuatl-speaking Pipil.Municipalidad de San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán 2011. In the 1520s, immediately after conquest, the inhabitants paid taxes to the Spanish Crown in the form of cacao, textiles, gold, silver and slaves. Within a few decades taxes were instead paid in beans, cotton and maize. Acasaguastlán was first given in ''encomienda'' to conquistador Diego Salvatierra in 1526. The region was subject to a strong influx of Spanish colonists due to its location on the route between the colonial capital and the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

, and hence to Spain, resulting in the hispanicisation of the territory.SEGEPLAN 2001, p. 18. Guastatoya was mentioned as a village in an edict issued in

Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala ("St. James of the Knights of Guatemala") was the name given to the capital city of the Spanish colonial Captaincy General of Guatemala in Central America. It is located in present-day Antigua Guatemala. H ...

, the colonial capital, in 1758. In 1825, various settlements were integrated into the Acasagustlán district that would later be included in El Progreso department. In the 1870s, the territory was divided between the departments of Guatemala, Zacapa and Chiquimula.SEGEPLAN 2001, p. 13.

Departmental history

The department of El Progreso was created by executive decree on 13 April 1908, to include the municipalities of Acasaguastlán, Cabañas, Guastatoya (which was renamed as El Progreso), Morazán, Sanarate, Sansaria (now known as Sansare), San Antonio La Paz, and San José El Golfo. For a short time from December 1919 to June of the following year, the department was renamed Estrada Cabrera at the request of its constituent municipalities, in order to honour the then-president. On 9 June 1920, after the president was overthrown, the department was dissolved by the government. The municipalities that it had incorporated were returned to their previous jurisdictions. The department was reestablished on 3 April 1934 by the legislative assembly. The departmental capital of Guastatoya was badly affected by the

, which completely destroyed all historic architecture in the town.

Geography

The department of El Progreso is located in northeastern Guatemala. It is bordered to the southwest by the department of

, to the southeast by Jalapa, to the east by

, to the west by

, and to the north by the department of

. The departmental capital is Guastatoya. The department occupies an intermediate zone between the hot lowlands and the cooler

. It has a surface area of approximately .Hernández 2004. The terrain is varied, with altitude varying between

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

. The department has a generally hot climate. The most important river is the Motagua. Other rivers in El Progreso include the Hato, Huija, Huyús, Las Ovejas, Morazán, Plátanos, and Sanarate rivers. To the north of the Motagua, the department is crossed by the

mountain range. The highest point in the department is Cerro El Pinalón, in the Sierra de las Minas, at .ITMB Publishing 1998. The main population centres in El Progreso are Sanarate, Guastatoya, and San Agustín Acasaguastlán. The CA-9 Atlantic Highway crosses the department from west to east, en route from

to the Atlantic port of Puerto Barrios. Other principal highways are the CA-17 from El Rancho towards

Cobán Cobán (), fully Santo Domingo de Cobán, is the capital of the department of Alta Verapaz in central Guatemala. It also serves as the administrative center for the surrounding Cobán municipality. It is located 219 km from Guatemala City. A ...

, and the RN-19 from Sanarate towards Jalapa.

Population

According to the 2018 census, the population of El Progreso was 176,632. In 2013, the non-indigenous proportion of the population was 98.2% against 1.8% indigenous. The majority of the population consists of Spanish-speaking Ladinos, although some traces of indigenous culture survive, such as in modes of dress, linguistic traces, and local customs and beliefs. By 2013 the total population had grown to 163,537. The 2012–2013 population growth rate was 1.73%, below the national average of 2.32%. By gender, 51.9% of the population are female, and 48.1% male. The majority of the population, 59.8%, lives in the rural portion of the department.INE 2014, p. 14. The predominant language in El Progreso is

Guatemalan Spanish Guatemalan Spanish () is the national variant of Spanish spoken in the Central American country of Guatemala. While 93% of Guatemalans in total speak Spanish, it is the native language of only 69% of the population due to the prevalence of langu ...

. In 2013, 89.2% of the population were recorded as literate, with a year-on-year drop in illiteracy from 16.1% in 2009.INE 2014, p. 23.

Mortality

In 2013, 930 deaths were registered in the department, demonstrating a 3.5% drop on the previous year, and 1.3% of the national total:

Economy and agriculture

Agricultural products include

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

sugar cane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

beans A bean is the seed of some plants in the legume family (Fabaceae) used as a vegetable for human consumption or animal feed. The seeds are often preserved through drying (a ''pulse''), but fresh beans are also sold. Dried beans are tradition ...

, cacao,

annatto Annatto ( or ) is an orange-red condiment and food coloring derived from the seeds of the achiote tree (''Bixa orellana''), native to tropics, tropical parts of the Americas. It is often used to impart a yellow to red-orange color to foods, but ...

tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

es,

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). ''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

, and a variety of other fruits. Tomato production is especially important in El Progreso, representing 6% of the national total. Local craft production includes basketwork, ropemaking, leatherwork, items fashioned from palm, and

tulle Tulle (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in central France. It is the third-largest town in the former region of Limousin and is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Corrèze, in the Regions of France, region of Nouvelle- ...

netting. Sanarate has the greatest economic production in the department, followed by Guastatoya, then San Agustín Acasaguastlán.

Tourism

Local tourist attractions include thermal baths near Sanarate and San Antonio La Paz.

Archaeological sites

The best preserved archaeological site in the region is Guaytán, which was inhabited from the Late Preclassic to the Late Classic periods of

Mesoamerican chronology Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian, prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BC ...

(approximately from 250 BC to 900 AD), and was an important centre for the distribution of

jade Jade is an umbrella term for two different types of decorative rocks used for jewelry or Ornament (art), ornaments. Jade is often referred to by either of two different silicate mineral names: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in t ...

.Arroyave Prera 2012, pp. 601–603.

Municipalities

El Progreso is divided into eight municipalities:Ministerio de Economía 2015. # El Jícaro # Guastatoya # Morazán #

# San Antonio La Paz #

# Sanarate # Sansare

Notes

References

*Arroyave Prera, Ana Lucia (2012).
Recordando a Guaytán, una propuesta de restauración en la acrópolis y en el Juego de Pelota B2
' (in Spanish). XXV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2011 (edited by B. Arroyo, L. Paiz, and H. Mejía), pp. 601–610. Guatemala: Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, Instituto de Antropología e Historia and Asociación Tikal. Retrieved 2016-10-29. Archived fro
the original
on 2016-05-15. *Feldman, Lawrence H. (1998).
Motagua Colonial
'. Raleigh, North Carolina, US: Boson Books. . . Archived fro
the original
on 2015-01-21. Retrieved 2016-10-29. *Gran Diccionario Náhuatl nline(2012). '
Huaxin
'' (in Spanish). Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Retrieved 2016-10-29. *Hernández, Gonzalo (8 August 2004).
Mapa No. 5: El Progreso: También conocida como la tierra de los ayotes
' (PDF) (in Spanish). Guatemala: Prensa Libre. Retrieved 2010-12-26. Archived fro
the original
on 2011-12-03. *INE (2014).
Caracterización departamental de El Progreso 2013
' (in Spanish). Guatemala: Instituto Nacional de Estadística. Retrieved 2016-10-29. Archived fro
the original
on 2015-07-20. *ITMB Publishing (1998). ''Guatemala'' (Map) (3rd ed.). 1:500000. International Travel Maps. ITMB Publishing Ltd. . . *Low, S. M. (1989),
Gender, Emotion, and ''Nervios'' in urban Guatemala
. In Dona L. Davis and Setha M. Low. ''Gender, Health And Illness: The Case Of Nerves''. New York, Washington, and Philadelphia, US and London, UK: Taylor & Francis. pp. 115–140. . . *Ministerio de Economía (2015)
Información Socioeconómica de Guatemala: Departamento de El Progreso
(in Spanish). Guatemala: Ministerio de Economía. Archived fro
the original
on 2016-10-29. Retrieved 2016-10-29. *Municipalidad de San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán (2011).
Historia del Municipio
(in Spanish). Municipalidad de San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán. Archived fro
the original
on 2014-01-03. Retrieved 2012-09-24. *SEGEPLAN (2001).
Plan de desarollo departamental El Progreso 2011–2025
' (in Spanish). Guatemala: Secretaría de Planificación y Programación de la Presidencia SEGEPLAN. Retrieved 2016-10-29. {{Authority control Departments of Guatemala 1908 establishments in North America 1934 establishments in Guatemala 1920 disestablishments in North America