Transport and infrastructure in Guatemala
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Guatemala with the average of all countries in America. The traffic routes have noticeable defects in many places and are often not in particularly good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, Guatemala ranks 109th in the world with 0.05 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 800 kilometers long.
The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the 400 km of coastline. In 2020, about 1.58 million freight containers were transported.
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Back to overview: Guatemala
Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 17,440 km. For each of the country's 17.11 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 1.02 meters. This puts Guatemala in 200th place in the global ranking. However, the country's size and population density of around 157 inhabitants per km² must also be taken into account. Countries with fewer inhabitants in the same or even larger area naturally achieve quite different values here and have to connect remote areas to the transport network despite a smaller population.With an average of 2709 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Guatemala is considered rather mixed. This corresponds to 16.8 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.
In Guatemala, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
Guatemala | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 17,400 km | 1,019.30 km | 160.16 m |
| Railroads | 800 km | 46.76 km | 7.35 m |
| Waterways | 990 km | 57.86 km | 9.09 m |
| Commercial harbors | 9 | 0.53 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 5 | 0.29 | 0.046 |
Central America | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 950,800 km | 4,294.37 km | 349.46 m |
| Railroads | 31,600 km | 142.75 km | 11.62 m |
| Waterways | 9,600 km | 43.32 km | 3.53 m |
| Commercial harbors | 15,674 | 70.79 | 0.006 |
| Airports | 233 | 1.05 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)
Largest airports and airlines in Guatemala
Climate details in Guatemala
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