A Bit of History

Guatemala City exists only because of the 1773 earthquake that leveled nearby Antigua. Authorities decided once and for all to move their capital to supposedly safer ground after several such seismic events during colonial times. The new city broke ground three years later with the stately name La Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción ("The New Guatemala of the Assumption"), presiding over Spain's colony of Central America for nearly a half-century more before becoming the capital of an independent Guatemala.

The land wasn't empty pre-1776, however. The Maya had lived here for 2,500 years before the relocation of the colonial capital, as evidenced by the ruins of Kaminaljuyú, today nearly swallowed up by modern development in Zona 7. True to historical patterns in developing countries, waves of migration from poor rural areas have caused the capital to balloon in size, including country people who fled to the capital during Guatemala's long civil war, looking for safety when violence shook the highlands. Many shantytowns ring the city as a result.

That much-vaunted safety from seismic activity that led colonial authorities to set up shop here proved an illusion: three major earthquakes rocked Guatemala City in the 20th century, the most devastating in February 1976 killing 23,000 people. Small tremors remain a fact of life in the capital. With the government struggling to upgrade building codes, it is hoped that the next "big one" will cause less damage.