Best Bitcoin Card for Honduras
The Central American Republic of Honduras (officially Spanish: República de Honduras) has an area of 112 188 km² and borders the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Neighbouring countries are Nicaragua to the southeast, El Salvador to the southwest and Guatemala to the west. In addition, the archipelago “Islas de la Bahía”, which lies in the Caribbean Sea, belong to the state territory. The largest island is Roatán with the city of the same name.
Population
90% of the 6.97 million Hondurans are hybrids. In the lowlands mulattos (negride and European ancestors) and zambos (negride and Indian ancestors) predominate, in the mountainous regions mestizos (Indian and European ancestors). Indians represent 7 % of the population, the majority of them are descendants of the Maya. Blacks and whites account for 2% of the population each.
More than half of the people live in cities. The largest city of the country is the capital Tegucigalpa with about 770 100 inhabitants, the next largest city is San Pedro Sula near the border to Guatemala with about 439 000 inhabitants. The port city of La Ceiba, with 114,600 inhabitants, plays an important role as a transshipment point for goods.
95 % of the Hondurans profess Christianity, whereby the Christian faith is strongly connected with ancient Indian traditions and rites. The proportion of Protestants is increasing (currently about one tenth of the population). The national language is Spanish. The population, whose average life expectancy is 65 years, is growing by 2% annually. About three quarters of the inhabitants of Honduras can read and write.
Political System
Honduras is a presidential democracy, the constitution dates back to 1982. The president (Juan Orlando Hernández, since January 2014), who can only be elected for one legislative period, is elected for four years. He appoints the ministers.
The National Congress has 128 MPs, who are also elected for four years. The number of seats per party is calculated from the percentage of votes counted for its presidential candidate. The Republic is divided into 18 Departamentos and 298 Municipios.
Economy
Honduras is one of the poorer countries in Latin America. Income is extremely unevenly distributed, with 65% of the population living below the poverty line. Officially, only 3.1% of Hondurans are unemployed, but there is a high number of unreported cases and underemployment (estimated at 35%).
The country basically offers good soil and good climatic conditions for growing food. Honduras was once the largest banana exporter in the world; banana cultivation still plays a central role in agriculture in the former Spanish colony. In addition, the cultivation of coffee, pineapple and palm oil has gained in importance. Almost 40% of the working population work in agriculture and account for 13% of the gross domestic product (GDP).
Rich mineral resources are suspected on Honduran territory. Gold, silver, zinc, antimony, copper and iron have been found but are only mined moderately. There are only a few industrial enterprises in the country that are mainly concerned with the processing of agricultural production, textile production and wood processing. A large part of the production flows into the domestic market.
Almost two thirds of exports – coffee, bananas, crustaceans, gold, palm oil, fruit and electrical engineering – are bought by the USA. This is due to the fact that both the plantations and the mines are still majority-owned by the US. Imports (oil, chemical products, automotive parts, machinery, electronics, iron and steel) also come mainly from the US.
Not all parts of the country have good transport links. Of the 13,600 kilometres of roads, only 2,800 are asphalted. International airports are located in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba. The main ports are Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean coast and San Lorenzo on the Pacific.bCurrency is the Lempira (= 100 Centavos).