Geography and Environment of Honduras

The Republic of Honduras is situated in the middle of six republics comprising, along with Belize, the Central American Isthmus between Mexico and Panama. Roughly triangular in shape, Honduras is the bend in Central America and has a 459-mile Caribbean coastline to the north and narrows in the south to 89 miles at the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded on the west by Guatemala, the southwest by El Salvador, and the east and southeast by Nicaragua. Honduras also has insular possessions, including the picturesque Bay Islands, formed by the summit of a submerged mountain range in the Caribbean. Farther northeast lie Swan Islands, previously used by the U.S. as a weather research station and now recognized as Honduran territory. Honduras has an estimated land area of 43,277 square miles, second largest of the six Central American republics, it ranks 14th in size among all Latin American nations. However, population distribution is unequal. The northeastern part is thinly inhabited. It comprises 45% of the entire national territory and only contains 9% of the population. Honduran topography is exceptionally rugged. The Central American Cordillera (mountain range) crosses Honduras from east to west, making it the most mountainous of the six republics. Three-quarters of the country is composed of rugged hills and mountains, ranging from about 900 feet to nearly 9,350 and averaging about 4,000 feet in height. Tegucigalpa is at 3,200 feet above sea level. Government estimates list 64% of the land surface as mountainous and 36% as plains and valleys. The highest mountain peaks are in the southwest. Lowlands make up the northern and eastern coastal plains, a narrow southern coastal plain, and the river valleys. The principal rivers are in the north and flow into the Caribbean. Geographically and commercially, the country consists of two general regions: the highlands of the interior and southern Honduras and the tropical, banana-producing North Coast. Southern coastal lowlands are grouped with the highland region because of their economic linkage with Tegucigalpa and their southwest central location.

Detailed geography