El Salvador has 545 km of borders, including 342 km of borders with Honduras and 203 km with Guatemala.

The city's metro area has recently grown very rapidly and has absorbed most of the neighboring municipalities of Villa Nueva, San Miguel Petapa, Mixco, San Juan Sacatepequez, San José Pinula, Santa Catarina Pinula, Fraijanes, San Pedro Ayampuc, Amatitlán, Villa Canales, Palencia and Chinautla forming what is now known as the Guatemala City Metropolitan Area.

In an attempt to control rapid growth of the city, the municipal government ( Municipalidad de Guatemala ) headed by longtime Mayor Álvaro Arzú, has implemented a plan to control its growth based on transects along its important arterial roads and exhibitting Transit-oriented development ( TOD ) characteristics.

Guatemala City also has a sizeable Indigenous population and minority groups such as Germans and other Europeans, Jewish, Asians primarily Chinese and Korean, and many groups of other Latin American origins such as Peruvian, and Colombian amongst others.

Guatemala City's population has experienced drastic growth since the 1970s with the influx of indigenous migrants from the outlying departments as well as a large influx of foreign groups.

For this reason along with several others, Guatemala City has experienced some growth problems such as transportation saturation, availability of safe potable water in some areas at certain times as well as increased crime.

The city also has some of the most expensive private schools in Central America, The American School of Guatemala and The Mayan International School.

Guatemala City has been affected several times by earthquakes.

By 2500 BC, small settlements were developing in Guatemala ’ s Pacific lowlands in such places as Tilapa, La Blanca, Ocós, El Mesak, and Ujuxte, where the oldest pieces of ceramic pottery from Guatemala has been found.

Northern Guatemala has particularly high densities of Late Pre-classic sites, including Naachtun, Xulnal, El Mirador, Porvenir, Pacaya, La Muralla, Nakbé, El Tintal, Wakná ( formerly Güiro ), Uaxactún, and Tikal.

This has brought on difficulties for Guatemala as more people puts pressure in the nation's economic progress in a country where 70 % live in dire poverty, and political stability was weakened by an inability to have effective population growth programs.

The 1996 signing of peace accords, which ended 36 years of civil war, removed a major obstacle to foreign investment, and Guatemala since then has pursued important reforms and macroeconomic stabilization.

On 1 July 2006, the Central American Free Trade Agreement ( CAFTA ) entered into force between the US and Guatemala and has since spurred increased investment in the export sector.

* Guatemala has the fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest in the Western Hemisphere.

Guatemala has a longstanding claim to a large portion of Belize ; the territorial dispute caused problems with the United Kingdom and later with Belize following its 1981 independence from the UK.

* Mexico has an embassy in Guatemala City and a consulate in Quetzaltenango and in Tecún Umán.

Guatemala also has consulates in Ciudad Hidalgo, Comitán and Tapachula.

Guatemala has an embassy in Moscow.

Russia has an embassy in Guatemala City.

In recent years the number of violent crimes reported by U. S. citizens has steadily increased, though the number of Americans traveling to Guatemala has also increased.

For example, the K ' iche ' language spoken in Guatemala has the inflectional prefixes k-and x-to mark incompletive and completive aspect ; Mandarin Chinese has the aspect markers-le 了 ,-zhe 着, zài-在, and-guò 过 to mark the perfective, durative stative, durative progressive, and experiential aspects, and also marks aspect with adverbs ; and English marks the continuous aspect with the verb to be coupled with present participle and the perfect with the verb to have coupled with past participle.

Afterwards, President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán resigned on 27 June 1954, and the installed military government ( 1954 – 57 ) of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas allowed him, and others, to seek political asylum in the Mexican embassy, en route to leaving Guatemala.

In turn, the private business complaints of the UFC prompted the US embassy in Guatemala City to send alarmist political intelligence to Washington, DC — that Guatemalan President Arévalo Bermejo allowed political rights to Guatemalan communists.

He was president during Spanish embassy fire in Guatemala City on 31 January 1980, in which 37 people died.

Shortly after his arrival in Mexico, the revolutionary government of Jacobo Arbenz triumphed in Guatemala, and Monterroso was assigned to a minor post in the Guatemalan embassy in Mexico.

* Alnus jorullensis — Mexican alder, Mexico, Guatemala ( one of the few evergreen species )

Although amaranth was cultivated on a large scale in ancient Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, nowadays it is only cultivated on a small scale there, along with India, China, Nepal, and other tropical countries ; thus, there is potential for further cultivation in those countries, as well as in the U. S. In a 1977 article in Science, amaranth was described as " the crop of the future.

ARIN formerly covered Argentina, Aruba, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Dutch West Indies, Ecuador, El Salvador, Falkland Islands ( UK ), French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela until LACNIC was formed.

Belize is bordered to the north by Mexico, south and west by Guatemala, and to the east by the Caribbean Sea.

During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, which was nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( i. e., Mexico ), but which in practice operated as a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire.

In 1540, Spain established the Captaincy General of Guatemala, which extended from southern Mexico to Costa Rica, and thus encompassed most of what is currently known as Central America, with the exception of British Honduras ( present-day Belize ).

193-Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, People's Republic of China, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Côte d ' Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, North Korea, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Likewise, the fall of Guatemala would end with the fall of neighboring Mexico.

North of El Salvador, Mexico and most of Guatemala are riding on the westward-moving North American Plate that butts against the northern edge of the stationary Caribbean Plate in southern Guatemala.

In September 1996, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras opened free trade talks with Mexico.

* FERISTSA Railway was proposed to connect Mexico with Panama via Guatemala using standard gauge rails

Guatemala is a transit country for cocaine shipments ; minor producer of illicit opium poppy and cannabis for the international drug trade ; active eradication program in 1996 effectively eliminated the cannabis crop ; proximity to Mexico makes Guatemala a major staging area for drugs ( cocaine shipments ).

Diplomatic relations between Mexico and Guatemala began in 1838 after the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Central America.

The United States, as a member of " the Friends of Guatemala ," along with Colombia, Mexico, Spain, Norway, and Venezuela, played an important role in the UN-moderated peace accords, providing public and behind-the-scenes support.

Among the most important figures of the federal era include the first democratically elected president in Honduras, Dionisio de Herrera, a lawyer, whose government, begun in 1824 established the first constitution, Gen. Francisco Morazán, Federal President 1830-1834 and 1835 – 1839, whose figure embodies the ideal American Unionist, and José Cecilio del Valle, editor of the Declaration of Independence signed in Guatemala on September 15, 1821 and Foreign Minister of Mexico in 1823.

The earliest known usage of nixtamalization was in what is present-day southern Mexico and Guatemala around 1500 – 1200 BC.

* Izapa – Chief city of the Izapa civilization, whose territory extended from the Gulf Coast across to the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, in present day Mexico, and Guatemala.

During the centuries preceding the classical period, Mayan kingdoms sprang up in an area stretching from the Pacific coasts of southern Mexico and Guatemala to the northern Yucatán Peninsula.

* May 10 is Mother's Day in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

* Mother's Day ( El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico )

A holiday in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta ( for schools only ), Mauritius, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.