Capital Belmopan
Largest city Belize City
Official language(s) English
Population
270,000
Currency Belizean dollar
Calling code +501

Belize exists a modest nation on the eastern coast of Central America, on the Caribbean Sea bounded by Mexico to the northwest, Guatemala to the due west & south, & Honduras 75 km outside (47 miles) across the Gulf of Honduras to the east. The country is a parliamentary republic and constitutional monarchy which one recognizes Queen Elizabeth II as Sovereign. The name is derived caused by the Belize River, fallowing which Belize City, the previous capital and largest city, is also named.

The single English-speaking area inside Central America, Belize was a British settlement for additional than a century and made up acknowledge as British Honduras until 1973. It became an independent nation around 1981. Belize is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Sistema de Integracion Centroamericana (SICA) and considers itself to be culturally each Caribbean and Central American.

Granting to the latest census, Belize's population exists nearby to 300,000, and lot of that number is multiracial & multiethnic. The Maya are the most launched of all ethnic groups, having been within Belize and the Yucatan region since the 500's AD. White English & Scottish settlers entered the region in using the 1630's to cut logwood for export & started settling down. The first African slaves started getting in derived from elsewhere in the Caribbean & Africa & started intermarrying by having whites and each other, to create the Creole ethnic group. when 1800, Mestizo settlers from Mexico and Guatemala started to settle down in the North; the Garifuna, a complex of African and Carib ancestry, settled in the South produced by path of Honduras not far fallowing that.

The 1900s witnessed the reaching of Asian settlers caused by Mainland China, Taiwan, Syria, Lebanon, & Korea. Central American immigrants and expatriate Americans and Africans as well started to settle down in the country, demonstrating an interesting potage. However, this was balanced by the migration of Creoles to the United States & elsewhere for better opportunities.

Currently, Mestizos comprise 50% of the population, and Creoles 25%. The rest is a complex of Maya, Garifuna, Mennonite Dutch/German farmers, Central Americans, whites given by America, and most recently black Africans & Cubans brought to assist the land's development.

Not surprisingly, this complex creates an equally interesting complex of communication. English is the official language (Belize having been a British colony) but most Belizeans use the extra familiar Belize Creole, a raucous & playful English-based language that contains colorful terms not well-expressed in English. Spanish has become important as the mother tongue of Mestizo and Central American settlers, & is a second language for lot of the country.

Less well acknowledge are the ancient Maya dialects, Garifuna (a mix of Spanish, Carib and other tongues) and the Dutch-German of the Mennonites. Literacy currently stands at near 80%.