Honduras
Tegucigalpa · Mexico & Central America
A land of Maya ruins, Caribbean coast, and a proudly Central American Spanish that learners rarely hear in the classroom.
Snapshot
Honduras is a Central American nation of about 10 million people, bordered by Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Its Spanish is characteristically Central American — fast-paced, with a strongly aspirated or dropped final -s and a warm, direct tone. The country's cultural roots run deep, from the ancient Lenca and Maya civilizations to the Garifuna communities on the Caribbean coast, who bring their own Afro-indigenous language and music into the national fabric.
- Capital
- Tegucigalpa
- Population
- ~10 million
- Currency
- Honduran lempira (HNL)
- Language
- Spanish (official) + Garifuna, Miskito, and several other Indigenous and Afro-indigenous languages
Did you know?
- ✨The word catracho, used by Hondurans to refer to themselves, comes from General Florencio Xatruch, who led Honduran troops against the filibuster William Walker in 1857.
- ✨The Garifuna people of Honduras's Caribbean coast speak a language recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
- ✨Copán's Hieroglyphic Stairway contains the longest known Maya hieroglyphic text, with more than 2,200 individual glyphs.
- ✨Honduras was the original "banana republic" — in the early 20th century, US fruit companies controlled vast swaths of the national economy and land.
- ✨The lempira, Honduras's currency, is named after a 16th-century Lenca chief who fiercely resisted Spanish conquest.