Honduras

THE HONDURAS COAT OF ARMS

Location of Honduras within the continent of Central America and the Caribbean

Map of Honduras

Flag Description of Honduras:The flag of Honduras was officially adopted on February 16, 1866. The blue and white and the five stars represent the United Provinces of Central America, after they gained their independence from Spain.

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Official name República de Honduras (Republic of Honduras)
Form of government multiparty republic1 with one legislative house (National Congress [128])
Head of state and government President: Juan Orlando Hernández
Capital Tegucigalpa
Official language Spanish
Official religion none
Monetary unit lempira (L)
Population (2013 est.) 8,072,000COLLAPSE
Total area (sq mi) 43,433
Total area (sq km) 112,492
Urban-rural population

Urban: (2012) 52.2%

Rural: (2012) 47.8%

Life expectancy at birth

Male: (2012) 69 years

Female: (2012) 72.5 years

Literacy: percentage of population age 15 and over literate

Male: (2010) 84.8%

Female: (2010) 84.7%

GNI per capita (U.S.$) (2012) 2,070

1An interim regime supported by the military held power from June 28, 2009, to Jan. 27, 2010, when a democratically elected president was installed.

About Honduras

Once part of Spain's vast empire in the New World, Honduras became an independent nation in 1821.

Honduras, officially Republic of Honduras, Spanish República de Honduras , country of Central America situated between Guatemala and El Salvador to the west and Nicaragua to the south and east. The Caribbean Sea washes its northern coast, the Pacific Ocean its narrow coast to the south. Its area includes the offshore Caribbean department of the Bay Islands. The capital is Tegucigalpa (with Comayagüela), but—unlike most other Central American countries—another city, San Pedro Sula, is equally important industrially and commercially, although it has only half the population of the capital.

The bulk of the population of Honduras lives a generally isolated existence in the mountainous interior, a fact that may help to explain the rather insular policy of the country in relation to Latin and Central American affairs. Honduras, like its neighbours in the region, is a developing nation whose citizens are presented with innumerable economic and social challenges, a situation that is complicated by rough topography and the occasional violence of tropical weather patterns, including the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Geography of Honduras

The Land

Relief

More than three-fourths of the land area of Honduras is mountainous, lowlands being found only along the coasts and in the several river valleys that penetrate toward the interior. The interior takes the form of a dissected upland with numerous small peaks. The main surface features have a general east-west orientation. There is a narrow plain of alluvium bordering the Gulf of Fonseca in the south. The southwestern mountains, the Volcanic Highlands, consist of alternating layers of rock composed of dark, volcanic detritus and lava flows, both of middle to early Cenozoic age (i.e., about 2.6 to 65 million years old). The northern mountains in other regions are more ancient, with granite and crystalline rocks predominating.

Four geographic regions may be discerned:

The eastern Caribbean lowlands (including the northern part of the Mosquito [Miskito] Coast, called La Mosquitia) and mountain slopes embrace about one-fifth of the total land area of Honduras. Hot and humid, this area is densely forested in the interior highlands, and lumbering is an important economic activity. Subsistence agriculture and fishing are the main support of the scattered population. The northern coastal and alluvial plains and coastal sierras make up about one-eighth of the land area and contain about one-fourth of the population. This is an economically important region, the clayey and sandy loam soils producing rich crops of bananas, rice, cassava (manioc, or yuca), oil palm, corn (maize), citrus fruits, and beans. Cattle, poultry, and pigs are raised. The nation’s railroads are confined to this northern area, which has four of the five important ports of entry. The central highlands take up two-thirds of the national territory and contain the vast majority of the population. The mountains are rugged, rising in the west to 9,347 feet (2,849 metres) at Mount Las Minas, the highest point in the country. The numerous flat-floored valleys lie between 2,000 and 4,000 feet (600 to 1,200 metres) in elevation. The generally fertile soils, derived from lava and volcanic ash, produce coffee, tobacco, wheat, corn, sorghum, beans, fruits, and vegetables and support cattle, poultry, and pigs. The Pacific lowlands, centred on the Gulf of Fonseca, and the adjacent lower mountain slopes are only a small part of the land area and contain an equally small part of the population. The fertile soils, composed of alluvium or volcanic detritus, produce sesame seed, cotton, and some corn and sorghum. Cattle are raised on the lowland pastures, and coffee is grown on the nearby uplands.

Climate

The climate is generally hot, with high humidity in the tropical coastal lowlands becoming modified by elevation toward the interior. Lowlands below 1,500 feet (460 metres) have mean annual temperatures between 79 and 82 °F (26 and 28 °C). The north coast is occasionally affected from October to April by cool northern winds of continental origin. Mountain basins and valleys, from 2,000 to 4,000 feet (600 to 1,200 metres), have mean annual temperatures of 66 and 73 °F (19 and 23 °C). At Tegucigalpa, located on hilly terrain at an elevation of 3,200 feet (975 metres), the rainy season starts in May and continues until mid-November, with temperatures sometimes reaching 90 °F (32 °C) in May and dropping to 50 °F (10 °C) in December, the coolest month. Around 7,000 feet (2,100 metres) mean annual temperatures are about 58 °F (14 °C). In the northern and eastern coastal and alluvial plains and on adjacent mountains, mean annual precipitation ranges from 70 to 110 inches (1,800 to 2,800 mm) or more, with a less rainy season from March to June; these areas occasionally have summer hurricanes that are accompanied by heavy rains. Pacific plains and mountain slopes get 60 to 80 inches (1,500 to 2,000 mm) of rain annually but from December to April receive little or no rain. Interior sheltered mountain basins and valleys receive 40 to 70 inches (1,000 to 1,800 mm) annually.

Plant and animal life

In eastern Honduras the coastal and lagoon swamps have mangrove and palm forests, and west of these are low, rainy, sandy plains with pine (Pinus caribaea) savanna, extending inland for 40 miles (65 km) or more. West of the pine savanna, in low valleys and on lower mountains, which are rainy all year, and on the low, rainy northern mountains are broad belts of dense evergreen broad-leaved forests with many species of large trees, including mahogany, lignum vitae, Spanish cedar, balsa, rosewood, ceiba, sapodilla, and castilloa rubber. The high, rainy mountain slopes of highland Honduras support excellent oak-pine forests. Open, dry, deciduous woodlands and

temperate grasslands are spread throughout the interior highland basins and valleys. The Pacific plains and adjacent mountain slopes have deciduous tropical forests and savannas. Mangroves occupy the low coastal swamps.

Insects, birds, and reptiles are the most conspicuous animal forms. There are many species of butterflies, moths, beetles, bees, wasps, spiders, ants, flies, and mosquitoes, many of them beautifully coloured. Waterfowl in large numbers inhabit the coastal areas. Crocodiles, snakes, lizards (giant iguana and others), and turtles are found in the tropical forest areas. The fauna also includes deer, peccaries, tapir, pumas, jaguars, and ocelots. Fish and mollusks are abundant in lagoons and coastal waters. Deforestation of some interior regions since the Spanish conquest has led to serious soil erosion, and, since the mid-20th century, pesticides used by banana producers have caused environmental damage along coastal regions.

To safeguard native flora and fauna, numerous national parks, protected forests, and biological reserves were established in the late 1980s and ’90s, including Mount Bonito National Park (1987), which covers 434 square miles (1,125 square kilometres), and the protected forests Cuero y Salado (1987) and Isopo Point (1992). Extending more than 60 square miles (155 square km) near the Guatemalan border is Mount Azul de Copán National Park (1987), an area of rainforest that surrounds the famous Mayan ruins of Copán. La Tigra National Park was established in 1980 and covers 92 square miles (238 square km) of cloud forest near Tegucigalpa.

Demography of Honduras

The people

Honduras has been inhabited since well before the 1st century ad. The ruins at Copán in western Honduras indicate that the area was the centre of Mayan civilization before the Maya migrated to the Yucatán Peninsula. Most of the American Indians are Lenca and are now found in the southwest, near the Guatemala border, close to the most important Indian centres of the pre-Columbian period. Small, isolated groups of non-Spanish-speaking Indians—such as the Jicaque, Miskito (Mosquito), and Paya—continue to live in the northeast, although their numbers are declining. Of the total population, about nine-tenths is mestizo (a mixture of Spanish and Indian). Blacks of West Indian origin and Garifuna (Black Caribs) make up a significant part of the population along the Caribbean coast, an area where English is widely spoken.

The official language of Honduras is Spanish, and the predominant religion is Roman Catholicism, more than four-fifths of the population being adherents. The largest of the remaining groups are Protestant, with notable congregations in the east and on the Bay Islands. There has been rapid growth in Protestant churches, especially since the upheaval caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

A pronounced shift in population took place during the early part of the 20th century from the interior to the hot, humid northern coast, where employment opportunities were provided by the United Fruit Company. These northwestern lowlands and the western and southern highlands constitute the most densely populated parts of the country. The population grew extremely fast during the mid-20th century, posing a considerable problem in employment and housing. Although the rate of growth slowed somewhat by the 1990s, it remained well above the world average. The majority of the population is rural, living in small villages or isolated settlements, but nearly half of Hondurans are urban residents. During the 1980s and ’90s there was an especially rapid increase in urban population in and around Tegucigalpa, with accompanying overcrowding of housing, suburban development, air and water pollution, and rising crime rates. In the rest of the country, the mountainous, forested terrain and poor roads added to the local isolation.

Economy of Honduras

Honduras is a poor country, and the majority of Hondurans work under extremely difficult conditions. The government has, however, adopted more active economic policies since the mid-20th century. In 1954 striking banana workers led the trade union movement to one of its most resounding triumphs, which resulted in the promulgation (in 1955) of a labour code that is considered one of the most complete instruments of its kind in Latin America. The code has generally resulted in a higher standard of living for the worker and better operating conditions for business; labour laws are not always strictly applied, however, and some workplaces are substandard.

The country’s natural resources include agricultural lands along the northern coast and interior river valleys, extensive pine forests, and small deposits of silver, lead, zinc, and low-grade iron ore. The economy is geographically divided between the highlands, where subsistence farming, stock raising, and mining have long dominated, and the lowlands, where plantation agriculture based largely on bananas is the chief occupation. In 1998, however, Hurricane Mitch devastated large portions of Honduran agriculture and transportation infrastructure, requiring major reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.

• Agriculture, forestry, and fishing

Early in the 21st century agriculture contributed little more than one-tenth of the gross domestic product (GDP) but still employed the biggest slice (about two-fifths) of the labour force. Two U.S. corporations—Chiquita (formerly United Fruit Company and United Brands) and Dole (formerly Standard Fruit and Steamship Company and Castle & Cooke)—hold a disproportionate amount of the country’s agricultural land and produce a substantial part of the national income by growing the majority of the country’s banana crop. Important export crops other than bananas include coffee beans, tobacco, and sugarcane. Corn is the chief staple crop. Honduran farmers also plant genetically modified corn (illegal in the rest of Central America), which has helped combat food shortages and rising corn prices. Cattle raising is the main livestock activity, and beef has become an important export.

About two-fifths of the country’s land is covered by forests, making forest products a potentially large source of national income. The extensive pine forests were attacked by blight in the 1960s, and mahogany—the major timber export—began declining in importance. The practice of shifting agriculture, employing widespread burning of forests and the cutting of wood for fuel, has caused a depletion of forest resources. Present commercial practices of forest exploitation are inefficient. A substantial portion of timber harvested for commercial purposes does not reach the sawmill, and less than half of the timber that arrives at the mill is processed into lumber. To help alleviate the wasteful forestry practices, the government put all forest trees under state ownership in 1974, but forests continue to be depleted at a rapid rate.

Fishing is a small but developing industry, carried on mainly off the Caribbean coast. Shrimp and lobster are the most important parts of the catch, the largest portion of which is shipped to the United States.

• Industry

Manufacturing, which accounted for about one-fifth of the GDP in the early 21st century, is dominated by small-scale firms that operate with intermediate levels of technology and possess limited processing capabilities. Dozens of foreign-owned maquiladoras (duty-free manufacturing plants) were opened in the late 20th century, and by 1997 they employed as many as 75,000 workers, mostly women. The major products manufactured and processed are food products, beverages, textiles, clothing, chemicals, lumber, and paper products. The production of capital and heavy intermediate goods is minimal. Industrial plants are located largely in the urban areas of San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa.

Mineral resources are limited but include silver, gold, lead, zinc, antimony, iron, mercury, and copper. From the 19th to the mid-20th century, the economy was largely dependent upon the production of silver and gold, particularly from El Mochito mine, which was the largest in Central America. Mining accounts for a tiny percent of the GDP, with zinc the leading mineral export.

• Transportation

Except along the northern coastal plain, where railroads serve the banana plantations, the country’s rugged terrain favours the development of roads instead of railroads, and roads in Honduras carry the vast majority of the freight tonnage and almost all the passenger traffic. The heart of the primary road network is the north-south highway that links the Pacific port of San Lorenzo and the Caribbean port of Puerto Cortez, stopping at Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The highway provides access to important agricultural areas in the Sula and Choluteca valleys and along the Caribbean coast. The Inter-American Highway (part of the Pan-American Highway) cuts across southern Honduras for about 100 miles. Highways also run southwest from San Pedro Sula to the El Salvador border and along the northern coast from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba. Hurricane Mitch caused enormous damage to the Honduran road system.

The Honduras National Railway, which is owned by the government and extends from Puerto Cortez to San Pedro Sula, hauls timber and agricultural products. The Tela Railway, once owned by the United Brands Company and acquired by the Honduras government in 1975, provides service for plantations in the eastern Sula Valley and the coastal plain. Another government-owned railroad runs east along the coastal plain to Balfate, with a branch extending into the Aguán Valley.

All Honduran ports are operated by the National Port Authority. The major ports in the country are Puerto Cortez, Tela, La Ceiba, and Puerto Castilla. The Pacific coast provides deepwater anchorage at Amapala on El Tigre Island and at the mainland port of San Lorenzo, completed in 1978.

Domestic air travel, although declining, supplements rail and highway travel, which includes intercity bus and truck service. Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport at San Pedro Sula is the largest airfield. The airport at Tegucigalpa has a substantially shorter runway and is minimally suitable for modern jet travel.

History of Honduras

The restored Mayan ruins of Copán in the west, first discovered by the Spaniards in 1576 and rediscovered in dense jungle in 1839, reflect the great Mayan culture (see Maya) that arose in the region in the 4th cent. It had declined when Columbus sighted the region in 1502, naming it Honduras (meaning "depths") for the deep water off the coast. Hernán Cortés arrived in 1524 and ordered Pedro de Alvarado to found settlements along the coast. Comayagua and Tegucigalpa developed as early mining centers. In a war (1537–38) between Spain and the indigenous population, Spain crushed the resistance after the death of the native leader, Lempira.

In 1821, Honduras gained independence from Spain and became part of Iturbide's Mexican Empire; from 1825 to 1838 it was a member of the Central American Federation. Thereafter, conservative and liberal factions fought bloody wars to control the republic, and Honduras was subjected to frequent interference from its Central American neighbors. Great Britain long controlled the Mosquito Coast and the Islas de la Bahía; William Walker attempted a "liberation" in 1860. Although Honduras often sought to reestablish Central American unity, the attempts were frustrated by political and personal animosities.

Foreign capital, plantation life, and conservative politics constituted a trio of dominant forces that held sway in Honduras from the late 19th cent. to the end of the regime (1933–48) of Tiburcio Carías Andino, when the liberal movement was reawakened. The rights of workers were not effectively defined and protected until a labor code was adopted in 1955 and a new constitution was promulgated in 1957. That year Ramón Villeda Morales became the first liberal president in 25 years.

Shortly before the scheduled presidential election in 1963, Villeda was overthrown and replaced by a military junta under Oswaldo López Arellano. The illegal immigration of several hundred thousand Salvadorans across the ill-defined El Salvador–Honduras border and the expulsion of many of the immigrants by Honduras led to a war with El Salvador in July, 1969. Although the war lasted only five days, its effects were serious, including the country's withdrawal from and the subsequent collapse of the Central American Common Market as well as continued border incidents. (A peace treaty was not signed until 1980.) In 1971 Ramón Ernesto Cruz was elected to succeed López, only to be ousted by López the following year. In late 1974 the Caribbean coast of Honduras was devastated by a hurricane. In 1975, López was himself the victim of a coup after accepting $1.25 million in bribes from the United Brands company. His successor was in turn ousted in 1978 in a military coup led by Gen. Policarpo Paz García.

As political unrest in the surrounding areas increased in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the United States pressured the Honduran government to hold democratic elections, and in 1982 a new constitution that called for free elections was promulgated and Robert Suazo Córdova became president. During the 1980s Honduras served as a base for insurgent activity against the government of Nicaragua by rebels known as Contras. The country's economy became heavily dependent on aid from the United States, which supported the rebel bases. In 1985, Jose Siméon Azcona del Hoyo was elected president in a disputed election. By 1988 popular discontent with the Contra presence resulted in massive demonstrations and the declaration of a state of emergency. In 1989, Rafael Leonardo Callejas Romero was elected to the presidency; the Contra war ended the following year.

In the 1990s Honduras benefited from regional peace and cooperation as it worked to establish economic viability independent of the United States. In 1992 an agreement was signed with El Salvador, largely settling the border controversy between the two countries; the last disputed section of the border was demarcated in 2006. Carlos Roberto Reina, of the Liberal party, was elected president in 1993; Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé, also a Liberal, won the 1997 presidential election. Late in 1998 the country was devastated by Hurricane Mitch, which left 5,600 people dead and thousands missing; much of the country's crops and livestock were destroyed. In 2001, Ricardo Maduro Joest, of the National party, won the presidency.

Manuel Zelaya Rosales, the Liberal party candidate, was elected president in 2005. Zelaya moved leftward during his presidency, aligning Honduras with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela in a number of instances, in part to obtain preferential oil prices. This and his proposal, first broached in Oct., 2008, to revise the constitution, alienated many in his own party, which controlled the National Congress, and in Honduras's conversative political and business elite. Despite the supreme court's ruling his referendum on a constitutional assembly illegal, he proceeded with plans for a June, 2009, nonbinding vote on the assembly, which was seen by many as a first move toward ending the presidential term limit. The resulting power struggle between the president and the supreme court, National Congress, and military led the court to order his arrest in June, and the military then forcibly exiled Zelaya. Roberto Micheletti, the speaker of the congress and a Liberal, was appointed interim president.

Zelaya's ouster was denounced internationally, with United Nations and Organization of American States calling for his restoration. Honduras was suspended from the OAS, and a number of nations imposed economic sanctions; Costa Rica's president, Oscar Arias Sánchez, undertook to negotiate a resolution to the crisis, but both sides proved unyielding. Zelaya returned to Honduras clandestinely in September and sought refuge in the Brazilian embassy. An agreement in late October to resolve the situation soon began to collapse, and the congress subsequently refused to restore Zelaya in a vote held (December) after the presidential election.

In the November election, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, the candidate of the conservative National party, was elected president. Lobo allowed Zelaya safe passage into exile after his Jan., 2010, inauguration. The warrants for Zelaya's arrest were dismissed in Mar., 2011, but the charges resulting from his attempt to hold a constitutional referendum were not dismissed until May. Zelaya and Lobo then signed an accord that led to Zelaya's return at the end of May and the subsequent end of Honduras's OAS suspension. In July a truth and reconciliation commission concluded that the ouster of Zelaya amounted to a coup, but that he had broken the law and bore responsibility for having created the situation that led to his ouster. In Dec., 2011, in response to increasing criminal gang and drug-related violence, due in large part to N Honduras having become a significant transit point for drugs moving from South America to Mexico, the Honduran congress voted to permit the military to take on policing duties. The presidential election in Nov., 2013, was won by Juan Orlando Hernández, a businessman and politician who was the National party candidate; he received 37% of the vote. Xiomara Castro, Zelaya's wife and the second-place candidate, denounced the result and accused the government of fraud.

Disclaimer

This is not the official site of this country. Most of the information in this site were taken from the U.S. Department of State, The Central Intelligence Agency, The United Nations, [1],[2], [3], [4], [5],[6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14],[15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24],[25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30],[31], [32], [33], [34], and the [35].

Other sources of information will be mentioned as they are posted.