Chiquimula Department
department of Guatemala
Chiquimula is one of the 22 departments of Guatemala, in Central America. The departmental capital is also called Chiquimula. The department was established by decree in 1871, and forms a part of the southeastern region of Guatemala. Physically, it is mountainous, with a climate that varies between tropical and temperate, depending on the location.
History
At the time of Spanish contact, Chiquimula was part of the indigenous kingdom of Chiquimulha, or Payaqui, governed from its capital at Copanti (now Copan, in Honduras). This kingdom also included portions of Honduras and El Salvador. The name Chiquimula is derived from the Nahuatl chiquimoltlān, from chiquimolin meaning "finches" with the locative suffix -tlān, to mean "place of many finches".
Chiquimula de la Sierra ("Chiquimula in the Highlands"), occupying the area of the modern department, was inhabited by Ch'orti' Maya at the time of the conquest. The first Spanish reconnaissance of this region took place in 1524 by an expedition that included Hernando de Chávez, Juan Durán, Bartolomé Becerra and Cristóbal Salvatierra, amongst others. In 1526 three Spanish captains, Juan Pérez Dardón, Sancho de Barahona and Bartolomé Becerra, invaded Chiquimula on the orders of Pedro de Alvarado.
The public source identifies “Chiquimula Department” as department of Guatemala. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Chiquimula, Department and department.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chiquimula Department” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.