The Captaincy General of Guatemala (Spanish: Capitanía General de Guatemala), also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala (Spanish: Reino de Guatemala), was an administrative division of the Spanish Empire in Central America, including the present-day nations of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Belize and Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Chiapas. The governor-captain general was also president of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala, the superior court.

Colonization of the area that became the Captaincy General began in 1524. In the north, the brothers Gonzalo and Pedro de Alvarado, Hernán Cortés and others headed various expeditions into Guatemala and Honduras. In the south Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, acting under the auspices of Pedro Arias Dávila in Panama, moved into what is today Nicaragua.

The capital of Guatemala has moved many times over the centuries. On 27 July 1524, Pedro de Alvarado declared the Kaqchikel city Iximche the first regional capital, styled Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala ("St. James of the Knights of Guatemala"). However, hostilities between the Spaniards and the Kaqchikel soon made the city uninhabitable.

In 1526 the Spanish founded a new capital at Tecpán Guatemala. Tecpán is the Nahuatl word for "palace". Tecpán is sometimes called the "first" capital because it was the first permanent Spanish military center, but the Spaniards soon abandoned it due to Kaqchikel attacks that made defense of the city untenable.

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