San Marcos La Laguna is a village on the western shore of Lago Atitlán in the Sololá Department of Guatemala.

In pre-Columbian times, the first Kachiquel settlers arrived from the area where the modern municipalities of San Lucas Tolimán and Santiago Atitlán are located, specifically from the place called "Pakip".

During the colonial era it was an encomienda in charge of the descendants of the Spanish conqueror Sancho de Barahona, among whom is the first president of the Federal Republic of Central America, General Manuel José Arce y Fagoaga.

Later, after the Liberal Reform of 1871, on August 12, 1872, the de facto government of provisional president Miguel García Granados created the department of Quiché, to which it awarded a large part of the territory of Sololá, although San Marcos La Laguna remained in the latter.

It is practically surrounded by municipalities of said department: North: Santa Lucía Utatlán South: Lake Atitlán13 East: Santa Cruz La Laguna West: San Pablo La Laguna13 Municipalities are regulated by various laws of the Republic, which establish their form of organization, the composition of their administrative bodies and the taxes allocated to them.

"[4] The municipal council is made up of the mayor, the trustees and councillors, elected directly by universal and secret suffrage for a period of four years, and may be re-elected.

The Oidor Juan Rogel Vásquez was sent by the Audience to make the founding of towns a reality, entrusting the religious of the regular orders who knew the indigenous languages to direct the reduction, focusing his attention on the headwaters of the lordships.

They also served as a center of acculturation and mandatory evangelization, since the indigenous people were regrouped by the encomenderos in towns called "Doctrinas", where they had to work and receive the teaching of Christian doctrine by religious of the regular orders, and also take charge of the maintenance of the friars.

The continuous rains revealed Guatemala's environmental disaster: the deforested mountains could not withstand the pockets of water and humidity that formed in those days, causing landslides and mudslides.

In the central and western highlands, layers and folds of hills and volcanoes collapsed, destroying hundreds of homes and causing human tragedy.