Why Worry About Guatemala? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Costa Rica

Guatemala is located in Central America, just south of Mexico. It also borders Belize, Honduras and El Salvador. The capital of the country is Guatemala City.

Guatemala's land is mainly made of tropical rain forests. It has many mountainous regions and has a great space of fertile land.

Other Central American countries include Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

Answer: September 15, 1821

Guatemala, along with the other countries before mentioned, all celebrate their independence from Spain on September 15. And it's not just them! Chiapas, now one of Mexico's 32 states, got their independence too!

Mexico celebrates Independence Day on September 16, although the night of September 15 commemorates "the grito", Spanish for "the scream". Miguel Hidalgo, a priest in Mexico, declared the start of the independence war with this famous scream.

Answer: Maya

Native Americans are a great part of Guatemala's population. Many Mayan families, however, are very poor and have very little land ownership. In fact, land distribution is a major problem in the country as Ladinos, descendants of Spaniards, are the rich landowners who own haciendas and lots of other fertile lands.

Mayans have been very affected by this, as they often feel Mayan and not Guatemalan, feeling there is no support from their country. The Civil War, that started in 1960 and ended in 1966, was a conflict that involved the Guatemalan government and Mayans. The military overthrew a leader that favored land reform, then installed a series of military leaders. Many Mayans were killed in the process, and their land taken away from them.

Answer: Ricardo Arjona

Ricardo Arjona is an internationally recognized singer and songwriter, who has a very peculiar lyrical style. His music has many different styles and he addresses a variety of topics like immigration and love, just to mention a few.

Both Alejandro Fernandez and Joan Sebastian are Mexican singers and Gustavo Lima is a Brazilian musician.

Answer: Antigua

El "Palacio de Los Capitanes", or Palace of Captains, was rebuilt many times after the 1773 earthquake. It is now the location of the local police force.

Tegucigalpa is in Honduras and San Jose in Costa Rica.

Answer: Erick Barrondo

At the 2012 London Olympics, Barrondo competed in the 20km walk event and won a silver medal, an historical one because it was the first ever for Guatemala. That silver medal was the only medal Guatemala won throughout the entire Olympics. His coach, Cuban Rigoberto Medina, also trained Salvadoran gold medalist Cristina Lopez.

Guatemala is not very known for their sports skills. The Guatemalan soccer team won their first CONCACAF championship in 1967, two years after hosting themselves the CONCACAF tournament. It was also the runner-up in the 1965 and 1969 tournaments, which took place in Guatemala and Costa Rica respectively.

Answer: Miguel Angel Asturias

Born in 1899, Asturias has works such as "El Seņor Presidente", which talks about dictatorship, and "Men of Maize", a book regarded by many as his masterpiece that deals with Mayan culture.

It is understandable that authors would focus on topics like these, as Guatemala has been through many civil wars and dictatorships, and years of discrimination against the Maya.

Answer: Otto Perez

A term as President of Guatemala lasts four years, and there is no right to re-election. Otto Perez was elected in 2011 and took office in 2012. He was the founder of the Patriotic Party.

Barack Obama was elected in 2008 President of the United States and Peņa Nieto was elected in the 2012 Mexican Presidential Elections.

Alfonso Portillo was the President of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004, and immediately after his term ended, he fled to Mexico. Since 2010, the United States were looking for him for money laundering and in May 2013, he was extradited to the U.S.

Answer: CAPTCHA

In 2000, the "Completely Automated Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart", or CAPTCHA system was introduced. In 2009, Google bought the evolution of CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, which uses the same interface but helps digitize text of books.

The system is used in major sites like Facebook, The New York Times, Twitter and TicketMaster.

Answer: Blue and white

The Guatemalan national flag is composed of two blue stripes, each at one of the sides, and a white stripe in the middle, with the coat of arms of Guatemala in it.

It was adopted in 1871 by President Miguel Garcia Granados.