Chiché

About Chiché:

Chiché has Santa Cruz del Quiché to the west, Zacualpa and Joyabaj to the east, Chinique to the north and Chichicastenango to the south. The town is 11 kilometres from Santa Cruz on an asphalt road that carries on through Chinique and Zacualpa to Joyabaj, and the drive takes half an hour. From Guatemala City the usual way, some 175 kilometres, leaves the Inter-American Highway at Los Encuentros and climbs through Chichicastenango and Santa Cruz. The other way in is the road to Tecpán, opened in 2022: 28 kilometres of new pavement that drop from Chiché to a bridge over the Motagua and climb again to La Cumbre, followed by 21 kilometres of older asphalt to the Inter-American at Santa Apolonia. It spares drivers from Chimaltenango the run through Chichicastenango. Expect steep grades and tight bends, though, and closures when the road is being repaired, as it was for a week in April 2026.

The name comes from K’iche’ and means “by the trees” or “where the forest is”, and for centuries the town was Santo Tomás Chiché, after its patron saint. In 1769 the Dominicans ran a hacienda here, San Juan Bautista Chiché, raising maize, beans and cattle. Chiché became part of Quiché when the department was created in 1872. Twenty years later the archaeologists Alfred and Anne Maudslay arrived to find a village of adobe and tile on a little plateau, ringed by artificial mounds up to ten metres high whose facing stone had most likely been carted off for colonial building. Around 30,000 people live in the municipality today, at least half as many again as in 2002, and most of them speak K’iche’ at home.

Outside the town there are 34 rural communities. The aldeas are Chuaxán I and II, Rincón de los Leones I and II, Capuchinas, also called Charón, and Trinidad, and the 22 cantones include Cucabaj, Tululché, Chupoj, Choyomché, Tzalamabaj, Cerritos, Membrillal and Laguna Seca. Farming carries the local economy: maize and beans on the workable ground, a few cattle, and pine needles raked from the woods to mulch the milpa and the fruit trees. Families also weave wool and cotton and turn out goods in wood. Trade has been done on the central plaza since at least 1836, and the market building put up in 1977, pumice block under a fibre-cement roof, has long been too small. On market days the stalls spill into the nearby streets and across the plaza.

The ground decides what a parcel is good for. Close to four-fifths of the municipality has slopes of 40 to 60 percent, with rock breaking the surface and soils best left to forest; that is the country around Chuaxán II, Chupoj III, El Carrizal, Membrillal I, San Francisco, Trinidad and Tululché I. The flat and more fertile land, a sixth of the total, lies in Cerritos I and II, Tzalamabaj I, Tululché II and part of Chuaxán I. A narrower band of rolling ground in Chuaxán, San Francisco and Rincón de los Leones floods for spells in the rainy season. Pine, oak, cypress and madrone still cover the heights around Charón, Capuchinas, Trinidad and Cerritos II, and in parts of Tululché the trees are old forest.

Houses in Chiché:

Town houses in Chiché often mix home and trade. One of the houses for sale in Chiché stands opposite the Juzgado de Paz on the road out to Tecpán, with three shop units on the street front. In the cantones a house usually sits on the family’s own land, with the milpa beside it and woodland further up the slope. When you view one, walk the yard and the plot behind it as well as the rooms. On ground this steep, the lie of the land around a house matters as much as the building.

Land and Lots in Chiché:

Land is most of this market, and it is sold by the cuerda. Cucabaj has had parcels of three, fourteen and sixteen cuerdas on offer, one with a long frontage on the road and another with cypress and pine already growing, sold either for building or for crops. In the aldea of Capuchinas, a 42-cuerda holding has been put up in blocks of five cuerdas. A cuerda is not the same size everywhere in Guatemala, so get the area written into the deed in square metres. If the parcel lies in steep country such as Trinidad or Membrillal, walk the access track in the rainy season before you commit.

FAQ:

• How do I get to Chiché from Guatemala City?

  The longer, familiar route follows the Inter-American Highway to Los Encuentros and then runs north through Chichicastenango and Santa Cruz del Quiché, some 175 kilometres in all. The shorter alternative leaves the highway at Santa Apolonia, near Tecpán, and takes the road through La Cumbre and across the Motagua, the last 28 kilometres of it opened in 2022. It is steep and winding and has been closed at times for repairs, so check its state before you set out.

• What should I check before buying land in Chiché?

  Start with the slope and the water. Much of the municipality is rocky ground at 40 to 60 percent, which makes access, foundations and terracing costly, and some low, rolling land in Chuaxán, San Francisco and Rincón de los Leones floods for a time in the rainy season. Then make sure the parcel is a finca registered in its own right in the property registry, in the seller’s name, and not an unmeasured share of a larger family holding. Walk the boundary markers with the neighbours so the area on the ground matches the deed.

• Where is the flattest land in Chiché?

  Level, workable ground is found in Cerritos I and II, Tzalamabaj I, Tululché II and part of Chuaxán I. It is a small share of the municipality, so a flat parcel in one of these cantones is worth a close look.

• How far is Chiché from Santa Cruz del Quiché?

  Eleven kilometres by asphalt, half an hour’s drive. The regional hospital and most departmental offices are in Santa Cruz, and the same road continues east through Chinique and Zacualpa to Joyabaj.

• When is the Chiché fair?

  The feria for Santo Tomás Apóstol runs in the last days of December, and 28 December is the main day. It brings a cattle fair, a jaripeo, convites, the Imperio Maya dance and processions of the cofradías.