Honduras

Honduras, officially the republic, is the Central American country between Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, with Tegucigalpa as its capital and largest city, divided into eighteen departments under Francisco Morazán's name. Maya and other Mesoamerican peoples lived there before Spanish colonisation in the sixteenth century brought Catholicism and the Spanish tongue, blending with native custom. Independent since 1821, it has been a republic ever since, though torn by strife and instability, and it stays among the poorest states of the hemisphere. In 1960 the northern half of the old Mosquito Coast passed from Nicaragua to Honduras by the International Court. The early twentieth century belonged to the transnational fruit companies, whose interests Washington guarded with arms, and the phrase banana republic was coined for this corporate democracy. A 1963 coup brought the soldiers back, civilian rule returned in 1979, and the 1982 constitution restored elections. The economy stays agricultural and exposed to hurricanes.