Sept 9 (Reuters) - Guatemala will elect a new president on Sunday. Here are five facts about the Central American country.

* Guatemala has breathtaking pyramids built by the ancient Maya. The largest ruined city is at Tikal where pyramids rise above a jungle that is home to elusive jaguars, howler monkeys and brightly colored parrots and quetzals, the national bird. Tikal, which ranks alongside Mexico's Chichen Itza among Mayan gems, is a major tourist draw.

* Guatemala has the highest per-capita adoption rate in the world with close to 5,000 babies adopted from the country of just 13 million people last year. About 95 percent of the babies go to the United States with more than 25,000 Guatemalan children placed in U.S. homes since 1990. It is a lucrative and at times corrupt trade run by private lawyers. Some are accused by authorities of forging paperwork or paying mothers to sell their children.

* The country is plagued by tattooed youth street gangs, known as "maras." Gang members are behind thousands of brutal killings, beheadings and eye gougings of rival group members or average Guatemalans who fail to pay extortion fees. The maras grew out of Hispanic groups in Los Angeles and spread throughout Central America in the 1990s when the United States began deporting illegal immigrants who committed crimes.

* Coffee is a mainstay of the Guatemalan economy, with the diverse climate producing several distinct types of Arabica beans, including the internationally renowned Antigua coffee. Many large farms shut down after world prices for coffee collapsed at the beginning of this decade, causing hunger and unemployment. Those that survived began producing high quality beans to fetch higher prices.

* Guatemala has become a major trafficking route for powerful drug cartels moving Colombian cocaine up through Central America and Mexico to the United States. Guatemala also grows poppies for heroin.

Three Salvadoran politicians and their driver were murdered in February in Guatemala. Days later, four policemen who were arrested for the murders were shot inside prison. Opposition politicians say the murders show that death squads operate inside the police and collaborate with drug gangs.

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