Quetzaltenango

Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela, is the capital of Quetzaltenango Department in the western Guatemalan highlands, in a volcanic basin at 2,330 meters elevation, with a population of 180,706 as of 2018, the country's sixth largest city. Predating the Spanish conquest by more than 300 years, it prospered in the nineteenth century as a coffee-growing center and briefly served, from 1838 to 1840, as capital of the short-lived state of Los Altos within the Federal Republic of Central America. Since the late 1990s the city has seen an economic boom that has made it the second-largest contributor to Guatemala's economy, and it retains extensive Belle Epoque architecture from its coffee-era prosperity.