HONDURAS, GULF OF

also called Bay Of Honduras, wide inlet of the Caribbean Sea, indenting the coasts of Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. It extends from Dangriga (formerly Stann Creek), Belize, southeastward to La Ceiba, Honduras, a straight-line distance between the two localities of about 115 miles (185 km). The gulf receives many rivers, including the Ula and the Motagua, and it contains the reefs known as the Pelican Cays of Belize to the north and the Bay Islands (Islas de la Baha) of Honduras to the east. Its coastal recess, Amatique Bay, holds the city of Puerto Barrios, the chief port of Guatemala. The port of Belize City north of Dangriga is sometimes considered the northern limit of the Gulf of Honduras. History The following history of Honduras focuses on events since European settlement. For regional treatment, see pre-Columbian civilizations: Meso-American civilization; Latin America, history of; and Central America. Early history When the Spanish arrived to colonize Honduras, the land was occupied by a variety of indigenous peoples, the most advanced of whom were the Maya. Gold stimulated Spanish conquest of the area early in the 16th century, and the Honduran gold-mining town of Gracias became the capital of Spanish Central America (the Audiencia de los Confines) in 1544. By 1548, however, the Spaniards had exhausted the gold, and Santiago (Antigua Guatemala) became the new capital of the Kingdom of Guatemala. Honduras, with its capital at Comayagua and agriculture the base of its economy, was a province of that kingdom (audiencia) within the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In the 1570s, a silver strike in the highlands brought a rush of prospectors to Honduras, resulting in the rise of an important population centre at Tegucigalpa, which competed thereafter, especially in the 18th century, with Comayagua. However, agriculture, the enduring economic base of Central America, was slow to develop in Honduras. Development of Spanish society in the Honduras area was hindered by coastal attacks from the pirates and buccaneers endemic to the Caribbean Sea and eventually by a concerted British effort to control the coastal areas of Central America. For long periods the Spanish utilized a soft defense against the Caribbean threat, falling back to the highlands and to the Pacific coastal areas, which were generally closer to their network of communication and transportation. Thus, the British came to control the Caribbean's Mosquito coastal region. The Sambo-Miskito peoples along the coast were the indispensable allies of the British in this endeavour. In the 18th century, however, the Spanish Bourbon kings made a sustained effort to recover the Caribbean coastal areas, and their success in the Gulf of Honduras was manifested by the completion of a fort at Omoa on the gulf by 1779. Independence from Spain came in 1821 and from Mexico in 1823, when Honduras joined in the formation of the United Provinces of Central America. Friction between Liberal and Conservative factions soon undermined the federation, however. In general, the Liberals favoured republicanism, freer trade, less government regulation, removal of the Catholic clergy's political and economic powers, and imitation of foreign models of development. Conservatives defended the clergy, leaned toward monarchism, mistrusted foreign models, and were generally more traditional and pro-Spanish in their outlook. In 1830 a Honduran Liberal, Francisco Morazn, became president of this federation, and for a decade he promoted Liberal policies that curtailed the traditional power and privileges of the clergy and increased agricultural exports. Conservative and popular opposition to Liberal policies led to the collapse of the federation, and Honduras declared its absolute independence on November 5, 1838. The prochurch Conservatives in Honduras took control under Francisco Ferrera, who became the first constitutional president on January 1, 1841. During the mid-19th century, despite its declaration of sovereignty, Honduras supported efforts to restore the Central American union, while its real independence was severely limited by its more powerful neighbours. Conservative domination lasted until the 1870s, during which time the church regained its former position and the Honduran government signed a concordat (1861) with the Holy See in Rome. After 1871 the ascendancy of Justo Rufino Barrios in Guatemala influenced a return to liberalism in Honduras, where Marco Aurelio Soto, a Liberal, assumed the presidency (1876). In 1880 the Liberals promulgated a new constitution that sought to undo the work of the Conservatives, and they also moved the capital from Comayagua to Tegucigalpa. Five years later, Liberals in Honduras and elsewhere proved to be nationalists first and blocked an attempt by Guatemala to unify the isthmus by force. Liberals continued to dominate the country well into the 20th century, encouraging foreign investment and economic growth, although Honduras remained the poorest state on the isthmus. The economy 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 nation'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 In terms of the gross domestic product (GDP), agriculture contributes the largest portionapproximately one-fourth of the GDP in the mid-1990s. Agriculture also employs the majority of the labour force. Two U.S. corporationsChiquita (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, cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane. Corn is the chief staple crop. Cattle raising is the main livestock activity, and beef has become an important export. More than half 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 mahoganythe major timber exportbegan 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 is the most important part of the catch, the largest portion of which is shipped to the United States. 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 Tertiary age (from about 1.6 to 66.4 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 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. The people Honduras has been inhabited since well before the 1st century AD. The ruins at Copn in western Honduras indicate that the area was the centre of Mayan civilization before the Maya migrated to the Yucatn 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 Indianssuch as the Jicaque, Miskito (Mosquito), and Payacontinue 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.