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Belize
Country, Central America. It is bounded by Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and Guatemala. Area: 8,867 sq mi (22,966 sq km). Population (1997 est.): 228,000. Capital: Belmopan. Much of the population is racially mixed: Creoles of mixed African and European ancestry, Maya Indians, Mayan-European mestizos, and Black Caribs. Languages: English (official), Creole, Spanish. Religions: Roman Catholicism, Methodism, Anglicanism. Currency: Belize dollar. Belize is a land of mountains, swamps, and tropical jungle. The N half consists of swampy lowlands drained by the Belize and Hondo rivers; the latter forms the boundary with Mexico. The S half is more mountainous and contains the country's highest peak, Victoria (3,681 ft, or 1,122 m). Off the coast lies the world's second-largest barrier reef. Belize is relatively prosperous and has a developing free-market economy with some government participation. It is a constitutional monarchy with two legislative houses; its head of state is the British monarch represented by the governor-general, and the head of government is the prime minister. The area was inhabited by the Maya c.300 BC-AD 900; the ruins of their ceremonial centers, incl. Caracol and Xunantunich, can still be seen. The Spanish claimed sovereignty from the 16th cent. but never tried to settle Belize, though they regarded as interlopers the British who did. British logwood cutters arrived in the mid-17th cent.; Spanish opposition was finally overcome in 1798. When settlers began to penetrate the interior they met with Indian resistance. In 1862 British Honduras became a crown colony, but an unfulfilled provision of a 1859 British-Guatemalan treaty led Guatemala to claim the territory. The situation had not been resolved when Belize was granted its independence in 1981. A British force, stationed there to ensure the new nation's security, was withdrawn after Guatemala officially recognized the territory's independence in 1991.

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