Portrait of Q’eqchi Mayan Women

Some of you may or may not know that La Antigua Guatemala is located within Kackchikel territory, one of the largest Maya groups in Guatemala. The Maya K’iche is the second largest group one can find in La Antigua. Although this colonial city is such a popular destination that through the year one is bound to bump into all other ethnic groups found in Guatemala, even the Q’eqchi from who inhabit the northern territories, as you can see here.

Below is an overview of the different ethnic groups found in Guatemala.

Guatemala is a highly diverse country, populated by a variety of ethnic, cultural, racial, and linguistic groups. According to the 2010 Census conducted by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), about 41.5% of the population is Mestizo (also known as Ladino), reflecting mixed indigenous and European heritage. A similar proportion of Guatemalans (41%) are of full Amerindian ancestry, which is among one of the largest percentage in Latin America, behind only Peru and Bolivia. Most indigenous Guatemalans are of the Maya people, namely K’iche’ (11.0% of the total population), Q’eqchi (8.3%), Kaqchikel (7.8%), Mam (5.2%), and “other Maya” (7.6%). Less than 1% are indigenous non-Maya.[178]

White Guatemalans of European descent (also called Criollo) represent 18.5% of the population. The majority are descendants of German and Spanish settlers, followed by other Europeans like Italians, British, French, Swiss, Belgians, Dutch, Russians and Danish.

There are smaller communities present, including about 110,000 Salvadorans. The Garífuna, descended primarily from Black Africans who lived and intermarried with indigenous peoples from St. Vincent, live mainly in Livingston and Puerto Barrios. Afro-Guatemalans and mulattos descended primarily from banana plantation workers. There are also Asians, mostly of Chinese descent but also Arabs of Lebanese and Syrian descent. A growing Korean community in Guatemala City and in nearby Mixco, currently numbers about 50,000. Source: Guatemalan ethnic groups, Wikipedia.

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