The island consists of two municipalities: José Santos Guardiola in the east and Roatán, including the Cayos Cochinos, in the west.

The indigenous people of the Bay Islands are believed to have been related to either the Paya, the Maya, the Lenca or the Tolupan, which were the tribes present on the mainland.

Throughout the European colonial era, the Bay of Honduras attracted an array of individual settlers, pirates, traders and military forces.

[4] In 1797, the British defeated the Garifuna, who had been supported by the French, in a conflict for control of the Windward Caribbean island of St. Vincent as part of the Second Carib War.

The majority of the Garifuna migrated to Trujillo on mainland Honduras, but a portion remained to found the community of Punta Gorda on the northern coast of Roatán.

The Garifuna, whose ancestry includes Arawak and Maroons, remained in Punta Gorda, becoming the Bay Island's first permanent post-Columbian settlers.

They also migrated from there to parts of the northern coast of Central America, becoming the foundation of the modern-day Garífuna culture in Honduras, Belize and Guatemala.

They arrived in the 1830s shortly after the passage of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act; the changes in the labour system disrupted the economic structure of the Caymans.

Mestizo migrants settled primarily in the urban areas of Coxen Hole and Barrio Los Fuertes (near French Harbour).

Numerous American, Canadian, British, New Zealander, Australian and South African settlers and entrepreneurs engaged chiefly in the fishing industry.

[citation needed] English is the first language of native islanders, regardless of race, and Spanish is spoken second, whereas mainland Honduras is Spanish-speaking.

The language can also be learned, although it is not taught in the general sense, whilst the accent derives from the wide variety of expatriates living and working on the Islands from North America and Europe.

A similar project has been completed and now serving West End Village (the Island's tourism, social and diving hub) with even greater success than its predecessors.

The Island has also expanded, repaved and revamped both its major highway roads with the south and north side portions being completed by mid-2020.

The island is part of the Islas de la Bahía y Cayos Cochinos Important Bird Area (IBA), designated as such by BirdLife International because it supports significant populations of white-crowned pigeons, chimney swifts and yellow-naped amazons.

The organization was formed in January 2005 when a group of concerned dive operators and local businesses united in an effort to protect Roatán's fragile coral reefs.

Initially, the RMP's goal was to run a patrol program within the Sandy Bay-West End Marine Reserve (SBWEMR), to prevent over exploitation through unsustainable fishing practices.

Over time, the organisation expanded the scope of their environmental efforts through the addition of other programs to protect Roatán's natural resources, including patrols and infrastructure, education, conservation and public awareness.

The Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences (RIMS) was established in 1989 with the primary objective being the preservation of Roatán's natural resources through education and research.

[9] RIMS is located in Sandy Bay, specifically in Anthony's Key Resort, on the northwest coast of Roatán with over 50 kilometres (30 miles) of fringing and barrier reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, and shoreline.

Over the past twenty five years, RIMS has established itself as a teaching institution and is visited by colleges as well as universities from abroad to study nearby tropical marine ecosystems and the bottlenose dolphins kept by the facility.

The goal is to enable stable legal structures, physical environment, human rights, and taxation in order to encourage investment, migration, and economic development.