AMATITLAN or SAN JUAN DE AMATITLAN, the capital of a department bearing the same name in Guatemala, on Lake Amatitlan, 15m. S.W. of Guatemala city by the trans continental railway from Puerto Barrios to San Jose. The popu lation in 192I was 37,705. The town consists almost entirely of one-storeyed adobe huts inhabited by mulattos and Indians, whose chief industry is the production of cochineal. In 184o only a small Indian village marked its site, and its subsequent growth was due to the sugar plantations established by a Jesuit settlement. The wells of the town are strongly impregnated with salt and alum, and in the vicinity there are several hot springs. Lake Amatitlan, 9m. long and 3m. broad, lies on the northern side of the great Guatemalan Cordillera. Above it rises the four cratered volcano of Pacaya (8,390 ft.), which was in eruption in 1870. The outlet of the lake is a swift river 65m. long, which cuts a way through the Cordillera, and enters the Pacific at Istapa, after forming at San Pedro a fine waterfall more than 2oof t. high.