Honduras - Is officially known as the Republic of Honduras. Honduras is a North American country located in Central America sharing borders with Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Pacific Ocean (by way of the Gulf of Fonseca), and the Caribbean Sea (by way of a large inlet the Gulf of Honduras). Honduras was once part of Spain's vast empire in the New World, and became an independent nation in 1821.Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America, has an extraordinarily unequal distribution of income and high unemployment. The economy relies heavily on a narrow range of exports, notably bananas and coffee, making it vulnerable to natural disasters and shifts in commodity prices. The US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) came into force in 2006 and has helped foster investment.
Archaeologists have demonstrated that Honduras had a rich, multi-ethnic prehistory. An important part of that prehistory was the Mayan presence around the city of Copán in western Honduras, near the Guatemalan border. A major Mayan city flourished during the classic period (150-900) in that area. It has many carved inscriptions and stelae. The ancient kingdom, named rtyu, existed from the fifth century to the early ninth century, with antecedents going back to at least the second century. The Mayan civilization began a marked decline in the ninth century, but there is evidence of people still living in and around the city until at least 1200.
