Chajul

Chajul San Gaspar Chajul
Municipality
Church in Chajul in the 1950s
Chajul Location in Guatemala
Coordinates: 15°29′14″N 91°02′05″W / 15.48722°N 91.03472°W / 15.48722; -91.03472
Country	Guatemala
Department	El Quiché
Municipality	Chajul
Government
• Type	Municipal
Area
• Municipality	276 sq mi (716 km2)
Population  (Census 2018)[1]
• Municipality	46,658
• Density	170/sq mi (65/km2)
• Urban [2]	24,247
• Ethnicities	Ixil K'iche' people Ladino
• Religions	Roman Catholicism Evangelicalism Maya
Climate	Cfb

Chajul (Spanish pronunciation: [tʃaˈxul]; full name San Gaspar Chajul) is a town and municipality in the Guatemalan department of El Quiché. Chajul is part of the Ixil Community, along with San Juan Cotzal and Santa María Nebaj. The Ixil region is isolated by beautiful mountains and has maintained its rich Ixil Maya traditions and language. Chajul, Nebaj, and Cotzal make up the Ixil Region in the Department of Quiché in the Western Highlands of Guatemala. Having been at the heart of the 36-year civil war, Chajul experiences post-war challenges such as emotional trauma, land displacement, and fragmented families.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, unemployment is high, large families live in one-room adobe houses with open cooking fires, opportunities for women are scarce, and family- and gender-based violence are common.^{[citation needed]} The community has a corn-based agricultural economy in which adults struggle daily to feed their families and the average income is $1–3 per day.^{[citation needed]} A 2002 study revealed that less than 1% of children graduate from high school (5% from middle school) as they are forced to leave school at a young age to help support the family household, leaving 75% of the adult population illiterate.^{[citation needed]} Chajul further suffers from common preventable health concerns, such as respiratory illness, intestinal disease, tuberculosis, malnutrition, and death during childbirth. Eighty percent of the Chajul population lives in poverty.^{[citation needed]}