CIUDAD VIEJA, Guatemala, a village near Antigua Guate mala (q.v.) which marks the site of the first capital of the Span ish Captain Generalcy of Guatemala. The population is about 200, but the village still contains the ancient church, erected in 1S43, and claimed by the Guatemalans to be the oldest church building in America excepting the cathedrals of Mexico and Lima, Peru. The original city of Guatemala was founded on this site by Pedro de Alvarado in 1527, and here he built a palace where his widow, Beatrice, who ruled after him as governor of the prov ince, was killed; a few arches and walls remain of this palace. In 1541, as the result of an earthquake, the crater of the volcano now known as Agua (water) was cracked and the old city was overwhelmed with the flood of water held in the crater; the lower floors of the old houses, filled with mud and silt in that catastro phe, form the foundations of the present huts of the village. Fol lowing this disaster, the capital was moved to the site now known as Antigua Guatemala, whence it was in turn removed, as a result of another earthquake in 1773, to the present site of the capital, Guatemala la Nueva (q.v.).