Honduras is known for its rich natural resources, including minerals, coffee, tropical fruit, and sugar cane, as well as for its growing textiles industry, which serves the international market.

The name could refer either to the bay of Trujillo as an anchorage, fondura in the Leonese dialect of Spain, or to Columbus's alleged quote that "Gracias a Dios que hemos salido de esas honduras" ("Thank God we have departed from those depths").

The Lenca people of the interior highlands are also generally considered to be culturally Mesoamerican, though the extent of linkage with other areas varied over time (for example, expanding during the zenith of the Toltec Empire).

On his fourth and the final voyage to the New World in 1502, Christopher Columbus landed near the modern town of Trujillo, near Guaimoreto Lagoon, becoming the first European to visit the Bay Islands on the coast of Honduras.

In addition to Spanish resources, the conquerors relied heavily on armed forces from Mexico – Tlaxcalans and Mexica armies of thousands who remained garrisoned in the region.

Honduras was organized as a province of the Kingdom of Guatemala and the capital was fixed, first at Trujillo on the Atlantic coast, and later at Comayagua, and finally at Tegucigalpa in the central part of the country.

[30] Initially the mines were worked by local people through the encomienda system, but as disease and resistance made this option less available, slaves from other parts of Central America were brought in.

They managed to found a few towns along the coast, at Puerto Caballos and Trujillo in particular, but failed to conquer the eastern portion of the region and many pockets of independent indigenous people as well.

[32][33] In the late nineteenth century, Honduras granted land and substantial exemptions to several US-based fruit and infrastructure companies in return for developing the country's northern regions.

[42] Border tensions led to acrimony between the two countries after Oswaldo López Arellano, the president of Honduras, blamed the deteriorating Honduran economy on immigrants from El Salvador.

The constitution was approved in 1982 and the PLH government of Roberto Suazo won the election with a promise to carry out an ambitious program of economic and social development to tackle the recession in which Honduras found itself.

Though spared the bloody civil wars wracking its neighbors, the Honduran Army quietly waged campaigns against Marxist–Leninist militias such as the Cinchoneros Popular Liberation Movement, notorious for kidnappings and bombings,[46] and against many non-militants as well.

[61] In April 2022, former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who served two terms between 2014 and January 2022, was extradited to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.

In La Mosquitia lies the UNESCO world-heritage site Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, with the Coco River which divides Honduras from Nicaragua.

Natural resources include timber, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, iron ore, antimony, coal, fish, shrimp, and hydropower.

After managing to stand for a second term,[68] a very close election in 2017 left uncertainty as to whether then-President Hernandez or his main challenger, television personality Salvador Nasralla, had prevailed.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, advised by John Negroponte, the former Reagan-era Ambassador to Honduras implicated in the Iran–Contra affair, refrained from expressing support.

These presidents are barely in office when they typically convene a constitutional convention to guarantee their reelection," said a 2009 Spiegel International analysis,[77] which noted that one reason to join ALBA was discounted Venezuelan oil.

In addition to Chávez and Morales, Carlos Menem of Argentina, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Columbian President Álvaro Uribe had all taken this step, and Washington and the EU were both accusing the Sandinista National Liberation Front government in Nicaragua of tampering with election results.

[89] A study done by Honduras NGO, World Neighbors, determined the terms "increased workload, decreased basic grains, expensive food, and fear" were most associated with Hurricane Mitch.

[95] Critics of aid from International Finance Institutions believe that the World Bank's Poverty Reduction Strategy result in little substantive change to Honduran policy.

[110] John Gillin considers Honduras to be one of thirteen "Mestizo countries" (Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay).

[9] The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) ranks Honduras 116th for measures including women's political power, and female access to resources.

[113] PAHO's subcommittee on Women, Health and Development was used as a guide to develop programs that aid in domestic violence prevention and victim assistance programs [113] However, a study done in 2009 showed that while the policy requires health care providers to report cases of sexual violence, emergency contraception, and victim referral to legal institutions and support groups, very few other regulations exist within the realm of registry, examination and follow-up.

[118] Unlike other Central American countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, Honduras does not have detailed guidelines requiring service providers to be extensively trained and respect the rights of sexual violence victims.

[120] The main indigenous languages are: The Lenca isolate lost all its fluent native speakers in the 20th century but is currently undergoing revival efforts among the members of the ethnic population of about 100,000.

[133] Violence in Honduras increased after Plan Colombia was implemented and after Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared the war against drug trafficking in Mexico.

[135] Along with neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala, Honduras forms part of the Northern Triangle of Central America, which has been characterized as one of the most violent regions in the world.

Other popular dishes include: meat roasted with chismol and carne asada, chicken with rice and corn, and fried fish with pickled onions and jalapeños.

Other holidays are Easter, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Day of the Soldier (3 October to celebrate the birth of Francisco Morazán), Christmas, El Dia de Lempira on 20 July,[138] and New Year's Eve.