GUATEMALA

Guatemala stamps for sale at Io Collezionista. Guatemala gained independence from Spain in 1821 and joined what was known as the Federal Republic of Central America, which also took in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and dissolved only in 1841, after the outbreak of an internal civil war that had begun some years earlier. The country's name comes from the Nahuatl word, the Aztec language, Cuauhtemallan, which can be rendered as place of many trees. The expression appears to have been used by the indigenous Tlaxcalan people as well, who passed it to the Spanish led by Pedro de Alvarado, an important figure in the campaign of conquest in Central America in the 16th century.