Ciudad Vieja is a municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 in the Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

n department

Departments of Guatemala

||Guatemala is divided into 22 departments :#Alta Verapaz#Baja Verapaz#Chimaltenango#Chiquimula#Petén#El Progreso#El Quiché#Escuintla#Guatemala#Huehuetenango#Izabal#Jalapa#Jutiapa#Quetzaltenango#Retalhuleu#Sacatepéquez...

 of Sacatepéquez

Sacatepéquez

Sacatepéquez was a city in Guatemala from November 21, 1542 until July 29, 1773 when it was destroyed by the Santa Marta earthquake. Sacatepéquez means grasshill and gave its name to the department of Sacatepéquez....

. According to the 2002 Guatemalan Census, the municipality has a total of 25,696 people.

Ciudad Vieja was the second colonial capital of the country.

History

Jorge de Alvarado

Jorge de Alvarado

Jorge de Alvarado y Contreras was a Spanish conquistador, brother of the more famous Pedro de Alvarado....

 founded the second capital here for the Captaincy General of Guatemala

Captaincy General of Guatemala

The Captaincy General of Guatemala , also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala , was an administrative division in Spanish America which covered much of Central America, including what are now the nations of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Chiapas...

 in 1527.

San Miguel Escobar

San Miguel Escobar is the modern name for the district that contains the ruins of the second colonial capital of the Guatamala region. The Spaniards founded their capital here in 1527, after their previous capital at Tecpán Guatemala

Tecpán Guatemala

Tecpán Guatemala is a municipality in the department of Chimaltenango, in Guatemala, on the Inter-American Highway CA-1.The climate is generally cold...

 became untenable. The city was destroyed by a catastrophic lahar

Lahar

A lahar is a type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris, and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley. The term is a shortened version of "berlahar" which originated in the Javanese language of...

 from Volcan de Agua

Volcán de Agua

Volcán de Agua is a stratovolcano located in the department of Sacatepéquez in Guatemala. It has been inactive since the mid 16th century. At 3,760 metres, Agua Volcano towers more than 3,500 metres above the Pacific coastal plain to the south and 2,000 metres above the Guatemalan...

 in 1541, and the survivors had no choice but to abandon the site.

The capital was again refounded several miles away at Antigua Guatemala

Antigua Guatemala

Antigua Guatemala is a city in the central highlands of Guatemala famous for its well-preserved Spanish Mudéjar-influenced Baroque architecture as well as a number of spectacular ruins of colonial churches...

 in 1543.