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Travel to Honduras — Unbiased reviews and great
deals from TripAdvisorHonduras
| Republic of Honduras National
name: República de Honduras President: Manuel Zelaya (2006)
Current government officials
Land area: 43,201 sq mi (111,891 sq km);
total area: 43,278 sq mi (112,090 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 7,639,327 (growth
rate: 2.0%); birth rate: 26.9/1000; infant mortality rate: 24.6/1000;
life expectancy: 69.3; density per sq km: 68
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Tegucigalpa, 1,436,000 (metro. area), 1,248,300
(city proper) Monetary unit:
Lempira
Languages:
Spanish (official), Amerindian dialects; English
widely spoken in business
Ethnicity/race:
mestizo 90%, Amerindian 7%, black 2%, white
1%
Religions:
Roman Catholic 97%, Protestant 3%
National Holiday:
Independence Day, September 15 Literacy rate: 76% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.):
$24.69 billion; per capita $3,300. Real growth rate: 6%.
Inflation: 6.4%. Unemployment: 28%. Arable land:
10%. Agriculture: bananas, coffee, citrus; beef; timber;
shrimp. Labor force: 2.81 million; agriculture 34%, industry
21%, services 45% (2001 est.). Industries: sugar, coffee,
textiles, clothing, wood products. Natural resources: timber,
gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, iron ore, antimony, coal, fish,
hydropower. Exports: $3.924 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): coffee,
shrimp, bananas, gold, palm oil, fruit, lobster, lumber.
Imports: $6.798 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.): machinery and
transport equipment, industrial raw materials, chemical products,
fuels, foodstuffs (2000). Major trading partners: U.S., Costa
Rico, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala (2006). Communications: Telephones: main lines in
use: 708,400 (2006); mobile cellular: 2.241 million (2006). Radio
broadcast stations: AM 241, FM 53, shortwave 12 (1998).
Television broadcast stations: 11 (plus 17 repeaters) (1997).
Internet hosts: 4,672 (2007). Internet users: 337,300
(2006). Transportation: Railways:
total: 699 km (2004). Highways: total: 13,603 km; paved: 2,775
km; unpaved: 10,828 km (1999 est.). Waterways: 465 km (most
navigable only by small craft) (2007). Ports and harbors:
Puerto Castilla, Puerto Cortes, San Lorenzo, Tela. Airports:
112 (2007). International disputes: in
1992, ICJ ruled on the delimitation of "bolsones" (disputed areas)
along the El Salvador-Honduras border, but despite OAS intervention
and a further ICJ ruling in 2003, full demarcation of the border
remains stalled; the 1992 ICJ ruling advised a tripartite resolution
to a maritime boundary in the Gulf of Fonseca with consideration of
Honduran access to the Pacific; El Salvador continues to claim tiny
Conejo Island, not mentioned in the ICJ ruling, off Honduras in the
Gulf of Fonseca; Honduras claims Sapodilla Cays off the coast of
Belize, but agreed to creation of a joint ecological park and
Guatemalan corridor in the Caribbean in the failed 2002
Belize-Guatemala Differendum, which the OAS is attempting to revive;
Nicaragua filed a claim against Honduras in 1999 and against Colombia
in 2001 at the ICJ over a complex dispute over islands and maritime
boundaries in the Caribbean Sea.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Honduras, in the north-central part of Central
America, has a Caribbean as well as a Pacific coastline. Guatemala is to
the west, El Salvador to the south, and Nicaragua to the east. The
second-largest country in Central America, Honduras is slightly larger
than Tennessee. Generally mountainous, the country is marked by fertile
plateaus, river valleys, and narrow coastal plains.
Government
Democratic constitutional republic.
History
During the first millennium, Honduras was
inhabited by the Maya. Columbus explored the country in 1502. Honduras,
with four other Central American nations, declared its independence from
Spain in 1821 to form a federation of Central American states. In 1838,
Honduras left the federation and became independent. Political unrest
rocked Honduras in the early 1900s, resulting in an occupation by U.S.
Marines. Dictator Gen. Tiburcio Carias Andino established a strong
government in 1932.
In 1969, El Salvador invaded Honduras after
Honduran landowners deported several thousand Salvadorans. Five thousand
people ultimately died in what is called “the football war” because it
broke out during a soccer game between the two countries. By threatening
economic sanctions and military intervention, the Organization of American
States (OAS) induced El Salvador to withdraw. After a decade of military
rule, parliamentary democracy returned with the election of Roberto Suazo
Córdova as president in 1982. However, Honduras faced severe economic
problems and tensions along its border with Nicaragua. “Contra” rebels,
waging a guerrilla war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, used
Honduras as a training and staging area. The U.S. also used Honduras for
military exercises, and it built bases to train Honduran and Salvadoran
troops.
In 1997, Carlos Flores Facussé of the Liberal
Party was elected president. He began to reform the economy and modernize
the government. In recent years, Honduras has faced high unemployment,
inflation, and economic overdependence on coffee and bananas. In Oct.
1998, Hurricane Mitch killed some 13,000 Hondurans, left 2 million
homeless, and caused more than $5 billion in damage.
In 2002, Ricardo Maduro became president,
promising to lessen crime and corruption, but his hard-line efforts,
growing increasingly more repressive, did not improve these problems. In
2006, a new president, Manuel Zelaya, also vowed to fight corruption and
gang violence, but he promised to do so with a more humane approach. A
free-trade agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S went into effect in April
2006.
See also Encyclopedia: Honduras
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Honduras
Instituto Nacional de Estadistica
http://www.ine-hn.org/ .
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Honduras from Infoplease:
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- Honduras - Map of Honduras & articles on flags, geography, history, statistics, disasters current events, and international relations.
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