Guatemala–Mexico border

Chiapas

When the Captaincy General of Guatemala declared independence from Spain on 15 September 1821, it included Chiapas. Chiapas soon declared itself part of Mexico, but Guatemala refused to accept that for sixty years. Mexico briefly annexed all of Central America in 1822–23.^[1]

A convention of 7 December 1877 set up a commission to survey the border, but it never finished. Instead the two countries signed a treaty on 27 September 1882. In Article 1 Guatemala gave up forever its rights to Chiapas and its district of Soconusco; Article 3 drew the line that is still the border today.^[1]

Lines on a map

The border begins in the Pacific three leagues off the mouth of the Río Suchiate and follows the river’s deepest channel inland, leaving the customs post of Talquián in Guatemala. It then runs straight towards the summit of the volcano Tacaná and on to the hills of Buenavista and Ixbul.^[1]

From there it follows a parallel east to the Río Chixoy (Salinas), runs down the Chixoy and the Usumacinta, and then follows a parallel 25 km south of Tenosique, a meridian, and finally the parallel of 17°49′N east to Belize.^[1] Away from the Suchiate, much of the line passes through dense jungle with few roads.^[2]

A protocol of 14 September 1883 set up the boundary commissions, a convention of 1 April 1895 clarified the Salinas stretch, and the line was fully marked with pillars by May 1899.^[1] Since 1961 a joint International Boundary and Water Commission has managed the rivers, and it has channelled the Suchiate because of flooding and shifting channels.^[1]

“The parallel of 17°49′ from its intersection with the aforesaid meridian indefinitely towards the east”^[1]

Across the Suchiate

Along the Suchiate, people have long crossed without troubling the border posts. In 2019 AP found Guatemalan farm hands wading the river to work in Mexican fields, and a Mexican farmer grazing his animals on river islands that had been Mexican until the river changed course and made them Guatemalan.^[2]

It is also where many Central Americans heading for the United States enter Mexico. In June 2019, as part of a deal to avoid US tariffs, Mexico announced it would send 6,000 members of its new National Guard to its southern region. Mexico’s interior secretary counted at least 300 known illegal crossing points on the southern frontier and 12 official ports of entry.^[2]