Honduras

Country	Honduras
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Capital	name: Tegucigalpa geographic coordinates: 14 06 N, 87 13 W time difference: UTC-6 (1 hour behind Washington, DC during Standard Time) daylight saving time: +1hr, begins second Sunday in March; ends first Sunday in November
Population	7,792,854 note: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2009 est.)
GMT	-6
Location	Central America, bordering the Caribbean Sea, between Guatemala and Nicaragua and bordering the Gulf of Fonseca (North Pacific Ocean), between El Salvador and Nicaragua
Area	total: 112,090 sq km land: 111,890 sq km water: 200 sq km
Ethnic groups	mestizo (mixed Amerindian and European) 90%, Amerindian 7%, black 2%, white 1%
Religions	Roman Catholic 97%, Protestant 3%
Languages	Spanish, Amerindian dialects
Government type	democratic constitutional republic
National holiday	Independence Day, 15 September (1821)
Constitution	11 January 1982, effective 20 January 1982; amended many times
Legal system	rooted in Roman and Spanish civil law with increasing influence of English common law; recent judicial reforms include abandoning Napoleonic legal codes in favor of the oral adversarial system; accepts ICJ jurisdiction with reservations
Background	Once part of Spain's vast empire in the New World, Honduras became an independent nation in 1821. After two and a half decades of mostly military rule, a freely elected civilian government came to power in 1982. During the 1980s, Honduras proved a haven for anti-Sandinista contras fighting the Marxist Nicaraguan Government and an ally to Salvadoran Government forces fighting leftist guerrillas. The country was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which killed about 5,600 people and caused approximately $2 billion in damage.
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