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Belize

Belize Spanish Belize

Country in the northeast of Central America, covering an area of 8,867 square miles (22,965 square km). The capital is Belmopan. It is bounded by Mexico to the north and northwest, by Guatemala to the south and west, and by the Caribbean Sea along its 174-mile (280-kilometer) coastline to the east. The population in 1990 was estimated to be 189,000.

Maya Indians lived in the area now known as Belize for centuries before the arrival of Europeans. The Spanish penetrated the area in the 16th and 17th centuries and tried to convert the Maya to Christianity, but with little success. It was British buccaneers and logwood cutters who finally settled on the inhospitable coast in the mid-17th century.

Situated south of the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize is a land of mountains, swamps, and tropical jungle. The southern half of the country is dominated by the rugged Maya Mountains, an igneous plateau cut by erosion into hills and valleys that stretch in a southwesterly to northeasterly direction. The Cockscomb Range, a spur of the Maya Mountains, runs toward the sea, culminating in Victoria Peak (3,681 feet [1,122 metres] high), the highest point in Belize. The northern half of the country consists of limestone lowlands less than 200 feet (60 metres) above sea level, much of which are swamp. The lowlands are drained by the navigable Belize River (on which stands Belize City), the New River, and the Hondo River; the latter forms the northern frontier with Mexico. Both the New and the Hondo rivers drain into Chetumal Bay to the north. South of Belize City the coastal plain is crossed by short river valleys. About 15 miles off the coast the second largest barrier reef in the world runs parallel to the coast and is fringed by dozens of small islands called cays.