Ixcán

Ixcán
Municipality of Guatemala
The market in Playa Grande Ixcán
Ixcán Location in Guatemala
Coordinates: 15°59′17″N 90°46′54″W / 15.98806°N 90.78167°W / 15.98806; -90.78167Coordinates: 15°59′17″N 90°46′54″W / 15.98806°N 90.78167°W / 15.98806; -90.78167
Country	Guatemala
Department	El Quiché
Municipality	Ixcán
Area
• Municipality of Guatemala	608 sq mi (1,574 km2)
Population (Census 2002)
• Municipality of Guatemala	61,448
• Urban	6,005
• Religions	Roman Catholicism, Evangelicalism
Climate	Af

Ixcán is a municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. Its administrative centre can be found in Playa Grande. The municipality consists of 176 communities, called aldeas. It has an area of 1575 km². It is the northernmost municipality of El Quiché, and borders with Mexico, the municipalities of Chisec and Cobán of the Department of Alta Verapaz, the municipality of Santa Cruz Barillas of the Department of Huehuetenango, and the municipalities of Chajul and Uspantán of El Quiché.

Native Mayan languages include Q'eqchi', Q'anjob'al, Mam, Popti and K'iche'. Spanish is also common.

Its annual festival is held from the 15th to the 17th of May.

Ixcán has an airport. Its International Air Transport Association code is PKJ.

In 1971 the indigenous Q'eqchi's from 24 villages in the Cancuén area, in southern Petén and north of Chisec were evicted by the Army, because it was considered that the region was rich in oil.

Since 1974, oil had been commercially extracted in the FTN vicinity following discoveries made by Shenandoah Oil and Basic Resources, which were operating together in the Rubelsanto oil field in Alta Verapaz. In 1976, when ten president Kjell Laugerud García came to visit the Mayalán cooperative in Ixcán, Quiché -which was formed just 10 years before- said: "Mayalán is seated on top of the gold," hinting that the North Transversal Strip would no longer be used for agriculture and the cooperative movement, but rather by strategic exploitation of natural resources. After that presidential visit, the two oil companies conducted exploration in Xacbal, near Mayalán in Ixcán, where they drilled the "San Lucas" well with unsuccessful results. These initial exploration, however, paved the way for future Ixcán and FTN oil experimentation, were also the main reason for building the dirt road that runs along the Strip. Shenandoah Oil, the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INTA) and the Army Engineer Battalion coordinated the construction of that corridor between 1975 and 1979, which eventually allowed political, military and powerful businessmen of the time become owners of many lands where potential timber and oil wealth lay.