Chichicastenango, also known as Santo Tomás, is a town in the El Quiché department of Guatemala, known for its traditional Maya Indian culture.

Chichicastenango serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of the same name.

Chichicatenango is a small and stucco-white town, lying on the crests of mountaintops at an altitude of 1,965 m. It is located about 140 km (86.991 miles) northwest of Guatemala City (a 2-3 hour drive).

Chichicastenango is home to what is said to be the most beautiful native market in North and Central America, perhaps in all America, which takes place twice a week. This town has been, since pre-Hispanic times, one of the largest trading centers in the Maya area.

The famous handicraft market of Chichicastenango draws not only the K'iche' Maya of the surrounding region, but vendors from all over Guatemala. They represent many of Guatemala's linguistic groups: Mam, Ixil, Kaqchikel, and others (Guatemala has 23 indigenous languages). Each person hawks his or her products in a cacophony of color, dialects, costumes, smoke, and smells.

Vendors start setting up their own portable booths in the main plaza and nearby streets of Chichicastenango the night before and set-up continues into the early daylight hours. Although it is sometimes not immediately apparent, the market is very well organized. Vendors of specific types of items occupy traditional places in the market. The fruit and vegetable vendors have their traditional area that they occupy, as well as the vendors of pottery, wooden boxes, condiments, medicinal plants, candles, pom and copal (traditional incense), cal (lime for preparing tortillas), grindstones, pigs and chickens, machetes, and other tools. In the central part of the market plaza are comedores (small eateries).

Among the items sold are textiles, particularly the women's blouses. The manufacture of masks, used by dancers in traditional dances has also made this city famous for woodcarving. Much of what is sold is of good quality, but there are also products in Chichicastenango's many factories for the not-so-discerning foreign companies.