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• Population:
6,406,052
• Area:
112,090 sq km
• Government:
Democratic constitutional republic
• Language:
Spanish
• Gross
Domestic Product: $6.5 billion (December 2003)
• Annual
Per Capita Income: $947 (December 2003)
Located in the
middle of Central America, Honduras covers an area of 112,090
sq km, making it slightly larger than the state of Tennessee.
The country features hundreds of miles of white sand beaches
along its Caribbean coastline and the reef-rich Bay Islands
just off shore. It has a mountainous interior that includes
one of Central America’s largest unspoiled tropical forests
in the Mosquitia region, and the archeological site at Copan
is among the region’s most impressive displays of ancient
Mayan culture.
While Honduras
escapes the main force of the earthquakes that plague other
Central American nations, the country’s biggest natural threat
comes during the tropical storm season in the from of hurricanes
and frequent flooding along the north coast caused by heavy
rains. Honduras was the hardest hit of the Central American
nations when Hurricane Mitch ravaged the area in late 1998.
In January 2002
Ricardo Maduro Joest was sworn in as president of Honduras
continuing the democratic tradition established in the early
1980s when decades of military rule were brought to an end.
Since winning its independence from Spain in 1821, Honduras
had been plagued by nearly 300 internal rebellions, civil
wars and changes of government – more than half occuring during
the 20th Century.
Honduras has
a population of roughly 6.5 million and an annual population
growth rate of 2.4 percent. The Roman Catholic Church is dominant,
although Protestant churches have become more popular in recent
years. Spanish is the national language although Creole and
Amerindian languages are still spoken in isolated pockets
along the northern coast and in the heavily forested highlands,
where groups of Lenca, Moskito, Pech, Chorti and Garifuna
peoples maintain a degree of cultural autonomy.
With a Gross
Domestic Product of about $6.5 billion (December 2003), or
$947 per capita (December 2003), Honduras is one of the poorest
countries in the Western Hemisphere. The nation is banking
on expanded trade privileges under the Enhanced Caribbean
Basin Initiative and on debt relief under the Heavily Indebted
Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative to foster economic growth.
Reconstruction from 1998's Hurricane Mitch is at an advanced
stage, and the country has met most of its macroeconomic targets.
Major industries include sugar, coffee, bananas, textiles,
clothing, and wood products and the most abundant natural
resources are timber, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, iron
ore, antimony, coal, fish and hydropower. The United States
is by far Honduras’ most important trade partner, accounting
for 35 percent of Honduran exports and 47 percent of Honduran
imports.
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