page_title: Villa Canales
section_title: After independence: Amatitlán Department
hierarchical_section_title: Villa Canales / History / After independence: Amatitlán Department
caption_attribution_description: Mariano Rivera Paz, Primer Presidente de Guatemala
context_page_description: Villa Canales is a city and municipality in the Guatemala department of Guatemala, situated 22 km south of the capital Guatemala City. As of the 2018 census, the city had a population of 124,680, making it the eleventh largest city in Guatemala.
context_section_description: After the independence of Central America, and during governor Mariano Rivera Paz time in office, a decree issue on 6 November 1839, created a new independent district called Amatitlán which also included Palín and Villa Nueva. The decree reads: 
  "The city of Amatitlán, San Cristóbal Palín, Villa Nueva, San Miguel and Santa Inés Petapa and all the annexed locations to these settlements will form an independent district for its political government and will be in charge of a Lieutenant Corregidor, who will act according to the applicable law starting on 2 October of this year and will earn a thousand pesos a year".
  "In the same district there will be a local court to impart justice".
  The district changed its name to Amatitlán Department according to the executive order of 8 May 1866 of field Marshall Vicente Cerna y Cerna government.
  On 3 June 1912 Pueblo Viejo became a new municipality within the Amatitlán Department and on 21 August 1915, the municipal council met with then president, Manuel Estrada Cabrera, to officially change the name of the municipality to San Joaquín Villa Canales, in honor of the late president's mother, Joaquina Cabrera, who died in 1908 but that the president admirers continued honoring unconditionally. Furthermore "San Joaquin", did not exist in the list of names approved the Catholic Church.
  It was until after Estrada Cabrera was sent to prison following the Tragic Week of 1920 that the new president Carlos Herrera y Luna, issued an executive action on 3 May 1920 asking for all the names related to the former dictator and his family to be removed from any location named after them. Thus, the municipality became simply «Villa Canales».
  The Amatitlán Department was abolished by decree 2081 of 29 April 1935 of president general Jorge Ubico regime. This decree literally reads:
caption: Portrait of Mariano Rivera Paz.  Rivera Paz was governor of the State of Guatemala when he created Amatitlán as an independent district in 1839.
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