Honduras

Honduras, in Central America, is mountainous and forested—although widespread slash-and-burn subsistence farming is destroying many forests. The largely mestizo population speaks Spanish, with English common on the northern coast and Bay Islands. Maya ruins at Copán, which represent the wealth of the past in what today is one of the region’s poorest nations, help diversify the economy with tourist revenue. Although agricultural products are plentiful, mostly bananas and coffee, they have failed to enliven the economy of this tenuous democracy. The 2003 U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement brings economic hope.