A chronology of key events:
1523-24 - Spanish adventurer Pedro de Alvarado defeats the indigenous Maya and turns Guatemala into a Spanish colony.
1821 - Guatemala becomes independent and joins the Mexican empire the following year.
More than 200,000 were killed, or disappeared, in civil war
1823 - Guatemala becomes part of the United Provinces of Central America, which also include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.
1839 - Guatemala becomes fully independent.
1844-65 - Guatemala ruled by conservative dictator Rafael Carrera.
1873-85 - Guatemala ruled by liberal President Justo Rufino Barrios, who modernises the country, develops the army and introduces coffee growing.
1931 - Jorge Ubico becomes president; his tenure is marked by repressive rule and then by an improvement in the country's finances.
1941 - Guatemala declares war on the Axis powers.
Social-democratic reforms
1944 - Juan Jose Arevalo becomes president following the overthrow of Ubico and introduces social-democratic reforms, including setting up a social security system and redistributing land to landless peasants.
Efrain Rios Montt era saw some of the war's worst episodes
1951 - Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzman becomes president, continuing Arevalo's reforms.
1954 - Land reform stops with the accession to power of Colonel Carlos Castillo in a coup backed by the US and prompted by Arbenz's nationalisation of plantations of the United Fruit Company.
1963 - Colonel Enrique Peralta becomes president following the assassination of Castillo.
1966 - Civilian rule restored; Cesar Mendez elected president.
1970 - Military-backed Carlos Arena elected president.
Human rights violated
1970s - Military rulers embark on a programme to eliminate left-wingers, resulting in at least 50,000 deaths.
1976 - 27,000 people are killed and more than a million rendered homeless by earthquake.
Rigoberta Menchu, a campaigner for Mayan rights
1981 - Around 11,000 people are killed by death squads and soldiers in response to growing anti-government guerrilla activity.
1982 - General Efrain Rios Montt gains power following military coup.
1983 - Montt ousted in coup led by General Mejia Victores, who declares an amnesty for guerrillas.
1985 - Marco Vinicio Cerezo Arevalo elected president and the Guatemalan Christian Democratic Party wins legislative elections under a new constitution.
1989 - Attempt to overthrow Cerezo fails; civil war toll since 1980 reaches 100,000 dead and 40,000 missing.
1991 - Jorge Serrano Elias elected president. Diplomatic relations restored with Belize, from whom Guatemala had long-standing territorial claims.
1993 - Serrano forced to resign after his attempt to impose an authoritarian regime ignites a wave of protests; Ramiro de Leon Carpio elected president by the legislature.
1994 - Peace talks between the government and rebels of the Guatemalan Revolutionary National Unity begin; right-wing parties win a majority in legislative elections.
1995 - Rebels declare a ceasefire; UN and US criticise Guatemala for widespread human rights abuses.
End of civil war
1996 - Alvaro Arzu elected president, conducts purge of senior military officers and signs peace agreement with rebels, ending 36 years of civil war.
About 60% of the population is of mixed Mayan and European descent 2004: Maya culture ahead of its time
1998 - Bishop Juan Gerardi, a human rights campaigner, murdered.
1999 - UN-backed commission says security forces were behind 93% of all human rights atrocities committed during the civil war, which claimed 200,000 lives, and that senior officials had overseen 626 massacres in Maya villages.
2000 - Alfonso Portillo sworn in as president after winning elections in 1999.
2001 December - President Portillo pays $1.8 millon in compensation to the families of 226 men, women and children killed by soldiers and paramilitaries in the northern village of Las Dos Erres in 1982.
Border talks
2002 September - Guatemala and Belize agree on draft settlement to their long-standing border dispute at talks brokered by Organization of American States (OAS). Both nations will hold referendums on draft settlement.
2003
November - Presidential elections go to second round. Former military leader Efrain Rios Montt trails in third place, accepts defeat.
2003 December - Conservative businessman Oscar Berger - a former mayor of Guatemala City - wins presidential election in second round.
Guatemala - along with Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras - agrees on free-trade agreement with US.
2004 May - Former military leader Efrain Rios Montt placed under house arrest.
2004 May/June - Major cuts to the army; bases are closed and 10,000 soldiers are retired.
2004 July - $3.5 million in damages paid to victims of civil war. Move follows state's formal admissions of guilt in several well-known human rights crimes.
2004 September - Deadly clashes as police try to evict around 600 squatters from private farm. Eleven people are killed.
2004
December - UN mission, set up to monitor post-civil war peace process, winds up. But UN says Guatemala still suffers from crime, social injustice, human rights violations.
2005 March - Government ratifies Central American free trade deal with US amid street protests in capital.
Storm deaths
2005 October - Hundreds of people are killed as Tropical Storm Stan sweeps through, triggering landslides and floods.
2005 November - Guatemala's leading anti-drugs investigator is arrested in the US on charges of drug trafficking.
2006 July - A Spanish judge issues a warrant for the arrest of former military leader Efrain Rios Montt and other former officials over atrocities committed during the civil war.
2006 December - Government and the UN agree to create a commission - to be known as the CICIG - to identify and dismantle powerful clandestine armed groups.
2007 February - Three El Salvador politicians and their driver are murdered near Guatemala City. The trio were members of the Central American Parliament, based in the capital.
2007 May - Guatemala ratifies an international adoption treaty, committing it to ensure that babies are not bought or stolen.
Murders
2007 July - Amnesty International urges the government to ratify the CICIG as a first step towards tackling the culture of impunity it says has contributed to Guatemala's soaring murder rate.
2007 August - International election monitors say they are worried about the high murder rate among political candidates and activists in the run-up to the 9 September polls.
2007 November - Alvaro Colom of centre-left National Unity of Hope Party wins presidential elections with nearly 53 percent of the vote.
2008 October - Former president Alfonso Portillo is extradited from Mexico to face corruption charges linked to disappearance of $15m (£8.5m) earmarked for Guatemalan defence department.
2008 November - Fifteen bus passengers including a Dutch national are shot dead and then set on fire in eastern Guatemala in what police believe to be a drug-related incident.
2009 May - President Alvaro Colom denies allegations of involvement in murder of a prominent who in a video made before to his death claimed Colom and other top officials were out to kill him.
2009 September - An ex-paramilitary officer, Felipe Cusanero, becomes the first person to be jailed for the forced disappearance of civilians in Guatemala's civil war.
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