Cuilco

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Cuilco is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetenango. It is located in the Cuchumatanes mountains in the Southwestern portion of Huehuetenango. In 2018 it served approximately 57,000 people, most of them Ladinos (who are ethnically Mam Maya), living in over 100 aldeas and caserios, which are smaller communities served by the municipality. While most of the population identifies as Ladino, this was not the case many years ago, when most people identified themselves as Mam Maya. Nowadays it’s mainly people living in certain Aldeas like Aldea Cancuc, Aldea Chejoj, El Chilcal, and Aldea Shequemebaj who still identify as Maya. The municipality covers a total area of 592 km². The

Cuilco, as the municipality's head town, contains the municipal government housed in the municipal building near the center plaza of town. As of 2007, the municipal building ("muni") employed approximately 15 people, providing many services to the surrounding villages and to Cuilco itself.

Tourism to Cuilco is fairly limited given its location more than 2 hours from Huehuetenango. The majority of Cuilco speak Spanish, the Mam Maya language isn't spoken as much as it used to be before.^[2]

Since the civil war started affecting Cuilco in the 1980s, many Cuilquenses have migrated to the Mexican state of Chiapas, and to the United States, mainly Indiantown, Jupiter, West Palm Beach, Immokalee, and Fort Myers Florida, as well as Mississippi, Illinois, Morganton North Carolina, Ohio, Marydel Maryland, and to California.^[3]

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