Source: These images were taken by WTL in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
Comments: Guatemala City has a population of 1,300,000 and is located in a mountain valley in the south central part of the country. It is the largest city in Central America. There is archeological evidence of human habitation on the site of this city in 7000 BCE (i.e., 9,000 years ago). When the Spanish arrived in the early part of the 16th century the site had long since been abandoned, and it remained an insignificant place until an earthquake razed the colony's first capital of Antigua in 1773. The king of Spain, Carlos III, authorized contruction of a new capital in this place in 1775. This location itself, situated as it in the earthquake zone of the Pacific Rim, was also struck by a number of earthquakes, the most recent of which in 1976 killed 23,000 people.