Belize

Belize is a country in Central America.

It is next to the Caribbean Sea. People speak English. The capital city is Belmopan.

Belize is on the northeast coast of Central America. Mexico is to the north, Guatemala to the west and south, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. It was a British colony called British Honduras, so English is the official language, and it became independent in 1981.

The 2022 census counted about 397,000 people, a small population for a country this size. Belize City is the largest city, but the capital is Belmopan, a newer city built inland. Its culture mixes Caribbean and Central American ways of life.

Britannica notes that Belize is often thought of as a Caribbean country in Central America, with institutions and an official language from British rule but a culture more typical of its Central American neighbors. Its prolonged path to independence was marked by an international campaign against Guatemala's territorial claims; independence came on September 21, 1981, within the Commonwealth.

The Statistical Institute of Belize's 2022 census, its seventh since 1960, counted 397,483 usual residents (the sum of its district totals). The name may come from the Spanish pronunciation of Peter Wallace, a Scottish buccaneer, or from Mayan belix ('muddy water') or belikin ('land facing the sea'). Belmopan has been the capital since 1970.

Belmopan is the capital.

The photo shows its parliament building. Belize City is by the sea. Long ago, the Maya built big stone cities here.

Belize City, at the mouth of the Belize River, is home to about one in five Belizeans, with old colonial buildings, wooden houses and new concrete homes. Belmopan, founded as the capital in 1970, is near the center of the country; the photo shows its parliament building.

Long before Europeans came, the Maya built cities here. More than a dozen major ruins remain, including Caracol, Xunantunich, Altun Ha and La Milpa. Towns such as Orange Walk, Corozal, San Ignacio, Dangriga and Punta Gorda spread across the country.

Belize City holds roughly one-fifth of the population; Belmopan, capital since 1970, about one-eighth, including many immigrants from other Central American countries. Between two-fifths and one-half of Belizeans are urban. Other towns include Orange Walk and Corozal on the New River, Dangriga and Punta Gorda on the coast, and San Ignacio, Santa Elena and Benque Viejo in the west.

Britannica cites more than a dozen major Maya ruins, among them La Milpa, Xunantunich, Altun Ha and Caracol. Spanish attempts in the 16th and 17th centuries to convert the Maya had little success; the Maya, though declining in number and living in decentralized societies, could not be decisively beaten.

A long coral reef lies along the coast.

Hundreds of little sandy islands sit on it. Inland there are mountains and thick forests.

The Belize Barrier Reef runs along the coast, with about 450 small sand and mangrove islands called cays and three ring-shaped atolls offshore. It is the largest barrier reef in the Northern Hemisphere and a World Heritage Site.

The north is low, flat limestone land with swamps. The south is mountainous: the Maya Mountains and the Cockscomb Range rise to Doyle's Delight, 1,124 meters high. About three-fifths of Belize is forest, from mahogany to pine. It is warm all year, with a wet season from June to November.

UNESCO describes the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System (1996) as seven protected areas, including the Blue Hole Natural Monument and Half Moon Caye, within the largest reef complex in the Atlantic-Caribbean region and the second largest reef system in the world, with three atolls (Turneffe, Lighthouse Reef, Glover's Reef) and about 450 cays; Charles Darwin called it 'the most remarkable reef in the West Indies'.

Inland, the Maya Mountains, an eroded igneous plateau, and the Cockscomb Range dominate the south; the north is limestone lowland under 60 m, drained by the Belize, New and Hondo rivers. Rainfall rises from about 1,270 mm at Corozal to 4,445 mm at Punta Gorda; Belize City averages 23 °C in December and 29 °C in July. About three-fifths of the land is forested, with at least 50 tree species.

Jaguars hunt in the forest.

Tapirs munch on plants. Gentle manatees swim along the coast. Toucans with rainbow beaks fly in the trees.

Belize's forests are home to jaguars, pumas, deer and Baird's tapir, a big plant-eater called the mountain cow, which is Belize's national animal. The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, founded in 1986, protects jaguars.

On the coast and reef live West Indian manatees, American crocodiles and sea turtles, and more than 500 kinds of fish swim on the reef. The keel-billed toucan in the photo was photographed in Belize's Cayo District.

Britannica lists the tapir, deer, jaguar, puma ('red tiger'), American crocodile and manatee among abundant wildlife; Baird's tapir, the 'mountain cow', which can weigh about 270 kg, is the protected national animal. The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary (1986, about 390 km²) lies below Victoria Peak, and Britannica says it has the most concentrated jaguar population in the world.

UNESCO's reef reserve shelters West Indian manatees, green, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles and American crocodiles, with red-footed booby colonies on Half Moon Caye; it records over 500 fish species and 65 stony corals. The toucan photo was taken in Cayo District, Belize; the manatee photo is from elsewhere.

Many groups of people live in Belize.

People speak English, Spanish, Creole, Maya and Garifuna. Many people speak two or three languages!

About half of Belizeans are mestizo, with Maya and Spanish ancestors. More than a quarter are Creole, mostly of African and British descent, and nearly a tenth are Maya. Belize is also home to Garifuna people and to Mennonite farming communities who came from Mexico and Canada in the 1950s.

English is official, but many people also speak Creole, and many speak several languages: Spanish, Yucatec, Mopán or Kekchí Maya, Garifuna, or Plautdietsch, an old Germanic language spoken by Mennonites.

Britannica gives mestizos about one-half of the population, mainly in the interior; Creoles more than one-fourth, mainly in the central coast; Maya (Yucatec in the north, Mopán and Kekchí in the south) nearly one-tenth; plus Garifuna, descendants of Caribs and Africans deported from Saint Vincent, Mennonites and others. Since the 1970s migration has shifted the population from a Creole majority; in the 1980s about 25,000 Spanish-speaking refugees arrived from Guatemala and El Salvador while many Creoles emigrated to the United States.

English is official, a creole is widely spoken, and many Belizeans are multilingual; Garifuna is Arawak-based, and Mennonites speak Plautdietsch. About two-fifths of people are Roman Catholic and about one-third Protestant.