Chalatenango occupies the far north of El Salvador, a land of mountains, pine forests, ravines and cool climate that borders Honduras. It is one of the most rugged and least populated departments in the country, of landscapes that contrast with the heat of the lowlands. The Lempa River, the largest in El Salvador, crosses and defines much of its geography before forming, downstream, the great reservoir of Cerrón Grande.
Of Lenca and Pipil roots, the region was historically devoted to cattle and agriculture, and its mountain isolation kept it for centuries far from the centers of power. During the colony it was a land of haciendas and indigo fairs. Towns such as Citalá, with its old Church of El Pilar —one of the oldest in the country— preserve the quiet, timeless flavor of the Salvadoran north.
The town of La Palma is world-renowned as the cradle of Salvadoran naïf art. In the 1970s, the painter Fernando Llort settled there and developed a colorful, unmistakable style inspired by rural life: simple figures of farm workers, little houses, mountains, suns, churches and birds that today decorate crafts, facades and objects throughout the country. Llort taught the craft to the inhabitants and founded a cooperative workshop that turned La Palma into a community of artisans.
Using copinol seeds, wood and stone painted in vivid colors, the artisans of La Palma gave El Salvador a visual image recognizable the world over; the art of La Palma is, perhaps, the country's most emblematic souvenir. La Palma also has a place in recent history: in 1984, its colonial church was the venue for the first peace dialogue between the government and the guerrilla, which earned it the title of 'cradle of peace'.
In the municipality of San Ignacio, along the Honduran border, rises Cerro El Pital, the highest point in El Salvador, at some 2,730 meters of altitude. It is a world apart within the country: cloud forest, oak groves, cold climate and the lowest temperatures in the national territory, where on winter mornings frost falls and the vapor freezes on the grass.
Together with La Palma and San Ignacio, El Pital forms a destination of mountains, hiking, camping and pure air that is increasingly popular among Salvadorans, who climb in search of the cold, the views and the starry skies. The area, with its crops of flowers, vegetables and high-altitude coffee, offers an almost alpine landscape unexpected in a tropical country.
Chalatenango was one of the central stages of the civil war of the 1980s. Its steep mountains, difficult to control, were an area of strong FMLN guerrilla presence, and many of its towns were caught between the fighting, the bombardments and the army's operations. Much of the population fled to refugee camps in Honduras or to other regions, and numerous villages were left depopulated.
With the 1992 Peace Accords a remarkable process of repopulation began: entire communities returned to rebuild their towns, often organized on a communal basis. That memory of war, exile and return is an essential part of the department's recent identity, and today it coexists with mountain tourism and with the art of La Palma as marks of a Chalatenango that rose from its ashes.
The south of Chalatenango is marked by the Cerrón Grande reservoir, or Lake Suchitlán, the largest body of fresh water in El Salvador, formed in the 1970s by a great hydroelectric dam on the Lempa River. Its construction transformed the landscape and the life of the entire central and northern region, and flooded lands and hamlets, but it also created a vast wetland.
Today the reservoir is a Ramsar site of international importance, a refuge for thousands of migratory and resident birds, and a destination for fishing, boat rides and birdwatching that Chalatenango shares with neighboring Cuscatlán and Cabañas. Between the cold peaks of the north and the waters of the Lempa to the south, the department unfolds one of the most varied and singular geographies in the country.