Nov 4 (Reuters) - Around 6 million Guatemalans are registered to vote on Sunday in a tight runoff election between right-wing former Gen. Otto Perez Molina and center-left presidential hopeful Alvaro Colom.

Here are some key facts about Guatemala:

GEOGRAPHY: Area: 42,042 square miles (108,900 sq km). Guatemala is bound by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the south and El Salvador, Honduras and Belize to the east.

POPULATION: About 13 million people.

LANGUAGE: Spanish is the official language. More than 20 indigenous languages - Xinca, Garifuna and various Mayan languages - are also spoken.

ETHNICITY: Around half of Guatemalans are of Mayan descent. There is also a large Ladino population of mixed descent and small groups of Garifuna, a black indigenous community.

RELIGION: Mainly Catholic. The number of Protestant groups has been growing. Mayan spiritual practices are also followed, usually alongside Catholicism.

ECONOMY: Guatemala's economy should grow by 5.6 percent in 2007, the fastest annual growth in two decades, driven by sugar and fruit exports.

-- Guatemala's free trade deal with the United States should lead to a more than 50 percent rise in foreign direct investment in 2007.

SOME RECENT HISTORY: After a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government of President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, the military ruled almost uninterruptedly for three decades. It finally handed over power to an elected center-left president, Vinicio Cerezo, in 1986. He survived two coup attempts during his five years in office.

- Leftist rebels took up arms in the early 1960s. The army reacted with counterinsurgency sweeps across large areas of the country, committing a string of atrocities in the early 1980s.

- Peace accords were signed in 1996, during the rule of President Alvaro Arzu, to end 36 years of civil war, during which some 250,000 people disappeared or were killed.

- A truth commission found that over 85 percent of war crimes were committed by the army, most during the rule of Gen. Efrain Rios Montt in the early 1980s. Rios Mont was elected to Congress this year despite facing genocide charges in a Spanish court.

-- Guatemala is still racked with violence and struggling to overcome corruption, drug smuggling and poverty. Drug traffickers and former paramilitaries with links to rival political groups are believed to be behind at least 50 killings in this year's election campaign, the most violent since 1996.

-- Guatemala has one of the world's highest homicide rates, with close to 6,000 people killed in 2006.

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