Honduras (GPS: 15 00 N, 86 30 W) located in Central America, bordering the Caribbean Sea between Guatemala and Nicaragua and bordering the Gulf of Fonseca (North Pacific Ocean) between El Salvador and Nicaragua. The country’s area measurements are total: 112,090 sq km; land: 111,890 sq km, water: 200 sq km. This sovereign state is slightly larger than Tennessee. The total irrigated land is 900 sq km (2012).
One of Honduras’s important features: Has only a short Pacific coast but a long Caribbean shoreline, including the virtually uninhabited eastern Mosquito Coast.
It’s significant, and at the same time, the principal city, Tegucigalpa’s GPS coordinates are 14 06 N 87 13 W. Tegucigalpa’s local time is 1 hour behind Washington DC during Standard Time. The capital’s time difference: UTC-6.
Google Maps Honduras and Tegucigalpa, Central America and the Caribbean
About Honduras in detail
Flag of Honduras
Map of Honduras
Once part of Spain’s vast empire in the New World, Honduras became an independent nation in 1821. After two and a half decades of mostly military rule, a freely elected civilian government came to power in 1982. During the 1980s, Honduras proved a haven for anti-Sandinista contras fighting the Marxist Nicaraguan Government and an ally to Salvadoran Government forces fighting leftist guerrillas. The country was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which killed about 5,600 people and caused approximately $2 billion in damage. Since then, the economy has slowly rebounded.
Honduras’s names conventional long form: the Republic of Honduras, conventional short form: Honduras, local long form: Republica de Honduras, local short form: Honduras, etymology: the name means “depths” in Spanish and refers to the deep anchorage in the northern Bay of Trujillo. The name means “depths” in Spanish and refers to the deep anchorage in Trujillo’s northern Bay.
Honduras’s terrain is typically mostly mountains in interior, narrow coastal plains. The country’s mean elevation: 684 m, elevation extremes; lowest point: the Caribbean Sea 0 m, highest point: Cerro Las Minas 2,870 m.
The general climate in the country; subtropical in lowlands, temperate in mountains.
The total number of border countries is 3, Guatemala 244 km, El Salvador 391 km, Nicaragua 940 km are the neighboring nations with the indicated border lengths. Honduras’s coastline is 823 km (Caribbean Sea 669 km, Gulf of Fonseca 163 km). At the same time, its marital claims are territorial sea: 12 nautical miles, contiguous zone: 24 nautical miles, exclusive economic zone: 200 nautical miles, continental shelf: a natural extension of territory 200 nautical miles. Waterways: 465 km (most navigable only by small craft) (2012). Land use: agricultural land: 28.8%; arable land 9.1%; permanent crops 4%; permanent pasture 15.7%; forest: 45.3%; other: 25.9% (2011 estimate).
The population in Honduras 9,182,766 (July 2018 estimate), urban population: 54.7% of total population (2015), major urban area’s population: TEGUCIGALPA (capital) 1.123 million; San Pedro Sula 852,000 (2015), while Honduras has most residents live in the mountainous western half of the country; unlike other Central American nations, Honduras is the only one with an urban population that is distributed between two large centers – the capital of Tegucigalpa and the city of San Pedro Sula; the Rio Ulua valley in the north is the only densely populated lowland area. Their spoken languages are Spanish (official language), Amerindian dialects. The main religions in Honduras are Roman Catholic 97%, Protestant 3%. The nation uses civil law system. It is a(n) presidential republic, National holiday(s) Independence Day, 15 September (1821).
Economic overview for the country: Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America, suffers from the extraordinarily unequal distribution of income and high underemployment. While historically dependent on the export of bananas and coffee, Honduras has diversified its export base to include apparel and automobile wire harnessing. Honduras’s economy depends heavily on US trade and remittances.
The US-Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement came into force in 2006 and has helped foster foreign direct investment, but physical and political insecurity and crime and perceptions of corruption may deter potential investors; About 15% of foreign direct investment is from US firms. The economy registered modest economic growth of 3.1%-4.0% from 2010 to 2017, insufficient to improve living standards for nearly 65% of the population in poverty. In 2017, Honduras faced rising public debt, but its economy has performed better than expected due to low oil prices and improved investor confidence. Honduras signed a three-year standby arrangement with the IMF in December 2014, aimed at easing Honduras’s short fiscal position.
Natural resources of Honduras: timber, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, iron ore, antimony, coal, fish, hydropower.
Main export partners for Honduras, Central America, and the Caribbean are US 36%, Germany 8.7%, El Salvador 8.5%, Guatemala 6%, Nicaragua 5.6%, Netherlands 4.1% (2015) for coffee, apparel, coffee, shrimp, automobile wire harnesses, cigars, bananas, gold, palm oil, fruit, lobster, lumber, while the main import partners for the country are: US 35.2%, China 13.6%, Guatemala 9.2%, Mexico 6.6%, El Salvador 5.1% (2015) for communications equipment, machinery, and transport, industrial raw materials, chemical products, fuels, foodstuffs.
When you visit this country in Central America and the Caribbean, consider the natural hazards in Honduras: Frequent, but generally mild, earthquakes, extremely susceptible to damaging hurricanes and floods along the Caribbean coast, while infectious diseases are a degree of risk: high food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever vectorborne diseases: dengue fever and malaria. Note: active local transmission of Zika virus by Aedes species mosquitoes has been identified in this country (as of August 2016); it poses a substantial risk (a large number of cases possible) among US citizens if bitten by an infective mosquito; other less common ways to get Zika are through sex, via blood transfusion, or during pregnancy, in which the pregnant woman passes Zika virus to her fetus (2016).
Also, note that Honduras faces the following environmental issues: Urban population expanding, Deforestation results from logging and the clearing of land for agricultural purposes, Further land degradation, and soil erosion hastened by uncontrolled development and improper land-use practices such as the farming of marginal lands, Mining activities polluting Lago de Yojoa (the country’s largest source of a freshwater well as several rivers and streams, with heavy metals.
You may also be interested in the countries next to Honduras around its total: 1,575 km border, like Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua.
