Villa Canales 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 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 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...

, situated 22 km south of Guatemala City

Guatemala City

Guatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...

. As of the 2002 census, the city had a population of 77,638, making it the eighth largest city in Guatemala.

History

Due to a government decision, Pueblo Viejo Petapa became a municipality on June 3, 1912. Afterwards, its name changed to San Joaquin Villa Canales and later shortened to Villa Canales.

Economy

The economy of Villa Canales is based around coffee, sugercane, and pineapple. The city is the largest producer of pineapple in the nation, due to the nearby Pacaya Volcano

Pacaya

Pacaya is an active complex volcano in Guatemala, which first erupted approximately 23,000 years ago and has erupted at least 23 times since the Spanish conquest of Guatemala. Pacaya rises to an elevation of . After being dormant for a century, it erupted violently in 1965 and has been...

which fertilizes the soil. Due to rapid growth and development, it has become one of the main municipalities of the department.