99 Fun Facts About Central America

How many countries is Central America usually said to contain?

Seven: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama; Mexico is added only in specialised contexts.

Belize is the only Central American country with which official language?

English: Belize was a British colony until independence and kept English as its sole official language; Belizean Creole, Spanish and Mayan languages are also widely spoken.

Which Guatemalan volcano's 1902 eruption was among the largest of the twentieth century?

Santa María's October 1902 eruption (VEI 6) blasted a new crater from its flank, killed thousands, and later spawned the Santiaguito lava-dome complex that began growing in 1922.

Most of Central America declared independence from Spain in which year?

1821: the Act of Independence of Central America was signed in Guatemala City on 15 September 1821; the region was briefly annexed by Mexico before forming its own federation in 1823.

Which colonial unit governed most of Central America for two centuries before independence?

The Captaincy General of Guatemala, seated in Santiago de los Caballeros and later Nueva Guatemala, answered to the viceroy in Mexico City and included the modern Mexican state of Chiapas.

Where does Guatemala rank by population among Central American countries?

About 17.6 million people live there, making it the fourth most populous nation in all of North America.

The name Guatemala comes from a Nahuatl word meaning what?

Place of many trees: Nahuatl Cuauhtēmallān combines cuahuitl (tree) with a suffix of abundance, a calque of the K'iche' name meaning 'many trees'.

Which peak is the highest point in Central America?

Tajumulco: the Guatemalan volcano in San Marcos department rises to 4,220 metres, the highest point in Central America, near the border with Mexico's Chiapas.

Which lake is the deepest in Central America?

Atitlán: the Guatemalan caldera lake reaches about 340 metres deep, far beyond Lake Nicaragua's roughly 26 metres; its name means 'between the waters'.

Which Guatemalan Maya city was the first mixed UNESCO World Heritage Site?

Tikal: listed in 1979 for both culture and nature, its temples sit inside a Petén rainforest national park.

Which bird is Guatemala's national animal and the name of its currency?

Quetzal: the resplendent quetzal appears on Guatemala's flag and coat of arms and is the largest member of the trogon family.

Antigua Guatemala remained the colonial capital until which year?

1773: the Santa Marta earthquakes of that year wrecked the city and the crown ordered the capital moved to today's Guatemala City; the Baroque ruins earned UNESCO status in 1979.

Belize gained independence from the United Kingdom in which year?

1981: Belize became independent on 21 September 1981; progress was slowed for years by Guatemala's claim to sovereignty over Belizean territory.

What is the capital of Belize?

Belmopan: the planned inland capital was built after a 1961 hurricane devastated coastal Belize City, and government moved there in 1970.

What was Belize called under UK colonial rule?

British Honduras: the settlement was formally declared a colony under that name in 1862, administered from Jamaica until 1884.

Which 1961 storm prompted Belize to move its capital inland?

Hurricane Hattie: the Category 5 storm struck on 31 October 1961, the second devastation of Belize City in thirty years after the 1931 hurricane.

Belize's coral system is the world's second largest after which?

Great Barrier Reef: Australia's reef stretches some 2,300 km, far longer than the roughly 1,000-km Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System that runs from Cancún down to Honduras.

Which diver made Belize's Great Blue Hole famous as a top-five dive site?

Jacques Cousteau: his 1971 Calypso expedition charted the sinkhole, about 318 metres across and 124 metres deep in Lighthouse Reef, and he ranked it among the world's top dive sites.

Belize banned which fishing method throughout its waters in 2010?

Bottom trawling: Belize outlawed the seabed-dragging method nationwide in December 2010, and in 2015 banned offshore oil exploration within a kilometre of its barrier reef.

What is the capital of Honduras?

Tegucigalpa: Comayagua held the title until 1880, when President Marco Aurelio Soto moved the government to the silver-mining town in the central highlands.

"Banana republic" was coined for a Honduran democracy dominated by what?

Corporations: O. Henry coined the term in Cabbages and Kings (1904) for a fictional country modelled on Honduras, where American fruit companies such as United Fruit dominated politics.

The Honduran currency is named after which figure?

An indigenous leader: Lempira, a Lenca chieftain, led resistance to the Spanish conquest in the 1530s; the currency bearing his name replaced the peso in 1931.

Which Maya city in Honduras became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980?

Copán: the Honduran site was the capital of a Classic-period kingdom refounded in AD 426 by K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', and is famed for its Hieroglyphic Stairway.

Which explorer became the first European to visit Honduras's Bay Islands, in 1502?

Christopher Columbus: on his fourth and final voyage in 1502 he reached Guanaja in the Bay Islands before landing on the mainland near modern Trujillo.

The 1969 Football War between El Salvador and Honduras is also known by what name?

Also called the 100 Hour War, it flared over migration tensions around a World Cup qualifier.

El Salvador's nickname Pulgarcito de America translates as what?

Tom Thumb of the Americas: pulgarcito is Spanish for 'little thumb', the fairy-tale Tom Thumb, a nod to El Salvador being the smallest country on the American mainland.

In 2001, El Salvador replaced its colón with which currency?

The US dollar: the Monetary Integration Law of 2001 made the dollar legal tender alongside the colón, which had circulated since 1892 and was soon withdrawn.

In 2021, El Salvador made which asset legal tender?

Bitcoin: the Bitcoin Law took effect on 7 September 2021, making El Salvador the first country to adopt it as legal tender; a January 2025 amendment made acceptance voluntary.

Spanish authorities in El Salvador commercialised which indigenous crop around Izalco?

Cacao: the Pipil around Izalco grew cacao long before the conquest and Spanish settlers made it the province's first export; indigo later dominated, and coffee took over only in the nineteenth century.

Which Central American country is the largest by area?

Nicaragua: at roughly 130,000 km² it edges out Honduras (about 112,000 km²) and Guatemala (about 109,000 km²) as the largest country in Central America.

What is the capital of Nicaragua?

Managua: founded in 1819, it became the capital in 1852 as a compromise between the rival cities León and Granada.

Nicaragua's capital was badly damaged by earthquakes in 1931 and which later year?

The 1972 quake destroyed the city centre, which was never fully rebuilt in the same place.

Nicaraguans call their biggest lake Mar Dulce, meaning what?

Locals call it Cocibolca or Mar Dulce, the "Sweet Sea"; it is slightly smaller than Lake Titicaca.

Which unusual animal lives in freshwater Lake Nicaragua?

Scientists once thought they were an endemic species, but they are bull sharks that swim up the San Juan River.

What is the largest island in Lake Nicaragua?

Ometepe: formed by the twin volcanoes Concepción and Maderas, the 276-km² island is by far the largest in Lake Nicaragua; Zapatera is a distant second.

Which conquistador founded Granada and León in Nicaragua?

Francisco Hernández de Córdoba: he founded both cities in 1524 and the córdoba currency carries his name; he was beheaded in 1526 for defying his superior Pedrarias Dávila.

Costa Rica permanently abolished its army under a constitution adopted in which year?

1949: the constitution of 7 November 1949 enshrined the abolition that José Figueres Ferrer had proclaimed on 1 December 1948, after winning that year's brief civil war.

Which two countries share land borders with Costa Rica?

Nicaragua and Panama: Costa Rica's northern border with Nicaragua runs roughly 300 km and its southern border with Panama roughly 330 km, each stretching from the Pacific to the Caribbean.

What is the capital of Costa Rica?

San José: it replaced Cartago as capital in 1823; around 350,000 people live in the city proper and some two million in the surrounding metro area.

Which is Costa Rica's highest volcano?

Irazú: the volcano near Cartago rises to about 3,432 metres; on a clear day both the Pacific and the Caribbean can be seen from the summit.

Which religious group founded the settlement that became Monteverde, Costa Rica?

Several dozen arrived in 1951, partly to avoid the Korean War draft, and named the place "Green Mountain".

Costa Rica's Cocos Island is famed among divers for schools of which animal?

Hammerhead sharks: huge schools of scalloped hammerheads gather off the uninhabited island, reachable only by a 36-hour boat trip, which became a World Heritage Site in 1997.

Panama seceded from which country in 1903?

Colombia: after the Colombian senate rejected the canal treaty, the United States backed Panama's secession on 3 November 1903 and took over the canal project the following year.

Who crossed the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific in 1513?

Vasco Núñez de Balboa: on 25 September 1513 he sighted the Pacific, naming it the South Sea; Panama's currency, the balboa, introduced in 1904 at par with the US dollar, honours him.

The Panama Canal officially opened in which year?

1914: the canal officially opened on 15 August 1914 with the transit of the SS Ancón, a decade after the United States took over the stalled French project.

Which treaties set the handover of the Panama Canal to Panama on 31 December 1999?

Torrijos–Carter: signed on 7 September 1977 by General Omar Torrijos and President Jimmy Carter, the two treaties ended nearly a century of US control of the Canal Zone.

Which artificial lake forms the main stretch of the Panama Canal's route?

Gatun: damming the Chagres River created the lake 26 metres above sea level, and ships cross about 33 km of it, saving enormous excavation work.

The Pan-American Highway is interrupted by which roadless stretch?

Darién Gap: the break runs roughly 106 km between Yaviza in Panama and Turbo in Colombia, through swamp and rainforest with no road.

Who was elected the first president of the Federal Republic of Central America in 1825?

Manuel José Arce: the Salvadoran liberal took office in April 1825; the federation, with its capital in Guatemala City and from 1834 San Salvador, dissolved around 1840.

The straw Panama hat is named for where it was sold, yet it is woven in which South American country?

Ecuador shipped the hats to the Isthmus of Panama for sale abroad, and the name of the marketplace stuck. Theodore Roosevelt boosted the fashion when he was photographed in one at the canal works.

Which Steven Spielberg film is set on Isla Nublar, a fictional tropical island off the coast of Costa Rica?

Jurassic Park's island survives into the film sequels. In Michael Crichton's original novel, the Costa Rican government declares it unsafe and has it napalmed.

Which animals are said to rain from the sky in Yoro, Honduras, where a yearly festival celebrates the event?

Fish are found on the ground there after heavy storms, and Yoro has held a festival for them since 1998. One theory is that they are flushed out of underground waterways, not dropped from above.

A ship passing through the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific travels in which general direction?

Northwest to southeast is the canal's general line, because of the shape of the isthmus at that point. Its Pacific end actually lies slightly east of its Atlantic end.

The brightly decorated 'chicken bus' of Guatemala and Honduras usually began life as which North American vehicle?

A school bus retired in North America is the usual starting point. The nickname comes from tourists, not locals: it may refer to passengers packed in like chickens, or to live animals carried on board.

Chicle, a tree latex gathered by chicleros in Guatemala and Belize, was the traditional base of which everyday product?

Chewing gum makers relied on it so heavily that Wrigley was once the only buyer of Guatemala's whole crop. By the 1960s most had switched to a cheaper synthetic base.

Which Welsh privateer landed on the Caribbean coast in 1671 and crossed the isthmus to raid the Spanish city of Panama?

Henry Morgan was arrested afterwards to appease Spain, yet within three years he had been knighted and sent back to Jamaica as lieutenant governor. A rum brand now bears his name.

How did adventurer Richard Halliburton travel the length of the Panama Canal in 1928, paying a toll of just 36 cents?

By swimming, in stages over ten days, with an Army sharpshooter alongside to keep the alligators off. His 36 cents is the lowest toll in the canal's history.

Which two-word phrase, used as a greeting and as a reply, is a signature saying of Costa Rica's 'Ticos'?

Pura vida translates literally as 'pure life'. Costa Ricans say it as a hello in the street or in shops, and it is the stock answer to 'How are you?'

Which lizard of Central American rainforests is nicknamed the 'Jesus Christ lizard' for its ability to run across water?

The basilisk owes the trick to flaps of skin along its toes that trap tiny air bubbles. It is also a strong swimmer and has been known to stay underwater for up to half an hour.

Which Costa Rican goalkeeper won three consecutive Champions League titles as Real Madrid's first choice?

Keylor Navas earned the move to Madrid with his displays at the 2014 World Cup, where Costa Rica reached the quarter-finals for the first time.

Which Panamanian pitcher from a fishing village became the first player voted unanimously into baseball's Hall of Fame?

Mariano Rivera spent all 19 of his major-league seasons with the New York Yankees and retired with 652 saves, more than any pitcher before him. The Yankees signed him as an amateur from Puerto Caimito.

Which Panamanian boxer, a world champion in four weight classes, is nicknamed 'Manos de Piedra', or 'Hands of Stone'?

Roberto Durán got the name from a Panamanian boxing writer in 1971. In his 1980 rematch with Sugar Ray Leonard he stopped fighting in the eighth round, and the referee said he repeated 'No más'.

Which stuffed griddle cake is the national dish of El Salvador, which gives it a day of celebration of its own?

The pupusa is traditionally eaten by hand, with curtido and tomato sauce on the side. Honduras also claims to be its birthplace.

Which tree-dwelling mammal, which climbs down about once a week to defecate, is a national symbol of Costa Rica?

The sloth, in both its two-toed and three-toed kinds, was made a national symbol to help protect the animals and their habitat. Most recorded deaths in the country are blamed on power lines and poachers.

Belize's Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary was established in 1986 as the first protected area for which wild cat?

The jaguar reserve began as a no-hunting zone, which researcher Alan Rabinowitz persuaded Belize's government to declare after his field study showed how important the basin was to the cats.

Which rebel force in 1980s Nicaragua was secretly funded with proceeds from American arms sales to Iran?

The Contras had been cut off by Congress under the Boland Amendments, so officials in the Reagan administration kept money flowing to them in secret.

Which Panamanian ruler hid in the Vatican's embassy during the 1989 US invasion while troops blasted rock music outside?

Manuel Noriega gave himself up and was flown to the US, where a Miami court convicted him on drug charges and he served 17 years. He had long-standing ties with American intelligence agencies.

Which developer of the Suez Canal led the failed French attempt to dig a sea-level canal across Panama in the 1880s?

Ferdinand de Lesseps wanted a canal without locks, as at Suez. Epidemics and money troubles wrecked the project, and it was never completed.

Which event made Cornelius Vanderbilt's steamer-and-stagecoach route across Nicaragua a booming business in the 1850s?

The California Gold Rush sent prospectors hunting for the cheapest way west. Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company was soon carrying 2,000 passengers a month across the isthmus.

Which American mercenary made himself president of Nicaragua in 1856 and was later executed by firing squad in Honduras?

William Walker made an enemy of Cornelius Vanderbilt by seizing his transit company, and forces backed by the tycoon helped to oust him in 1857. As ruler he had also relegalised slavery.

Which Costa Rican president won the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his plan to end the civil wars of Central America?

Óscar Arias proposed removing all foreign powers from the region and ending aid to guerrillas. Voters returned him to the presidency for a second term in 2006.

Which K'iche' Maya activist from Guatemala won the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for championing indigenous rights?

Rigoberta Menchú became known around the world through a testimonial biography published in 1983. She was later named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Which Salvadoran archbishop was shot dead while celebrating Mass in 1980 and was declared a saint in 2018?

Óscar Romero was killed in a hospital chapel. Pope Francis declared him a martyr in 2015 and, at his beatification that year, praised his attention to the poorest and most marginalised.

Which slow-moving 1998 hurricane, the deadliest in Central American history, brought days of flooding rain to Honduras?

Mitch killed more than 11,000 people, mostly through flooding, which made it the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since 1780. It overtook a storm that had struck the same area in 1974.

Which percussion instrument, struck with mallets, is the national instrument of Guatemala?

The marimba, which resembles a wooden xylophone, was already being played in Guatemala in 1680, when it was recorded at celebrations for a new cathedral in what is now Antigua Guatemala.

In the creation story of Guatemala's K'iche' Maya, the gods finally succeed in making humans out of which crop?

Maize, both white and yellow, is what the gods shape into the first true people. The detail shows how completely Maya life depended on the crop.

What do Guatemalans in towns such as Sumpango build and fly each 1 November to guide spirits back to Earth?

Giant kites take months to make, and at Sumpango they are judged on creativity and on how long they stay in the air. Some carry notes for the dead tied to their strings.

Which export crop did Costa Rica tax to pay for its National Theatre, which opened with a performance of Faust?

Coffee was then the country's principal export, and its revenue had already paid for the first railway to the Atlantic coast. The theatre opened in 1897.

Which American writer coined 'banana republic' after fleeing to Honduras to avoid an embezzlement trial?

O. Henry used the phrase in Cabbages and Kings, a book he began writing while in hiding. He is better known for short stories such as 'The Gift of the Magi'.

Which newspaper publisher's widow beat Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua's 1990 election to become its first woman president?

Violeta Chamorro was the first woman elected head of state anywhere in the Americas. Her husband's assassination in 1978 had helped to spark the revolution that put the Sandinistas in power.

Which Panamanian salsa singer ran for president in 1994 and later played Daniel Salazar in Fear the Walking Dead?

Rubén Blades lost that election but later spent five years as Panama's minister of tourism. He also holds a master's degree in international law from Harvard.

Which Afro-Indigenous people of Honduras and Belize descend from islanders exiled from Saint Vincent to Roatán in 1797?

The Garifuna brought a language, music and dance that UNESCO proclaimed a masterpiece of intangible heritage in 2001. Only about half of the 5,000 people deported survived the voyage.

Which primate, known locally as a 'baboon', is protected by village landowners at Belize's Community Baboon Sanctuary?

The howler monkey sanctuary began in 1985 with twelve landowners who made voluntary pledges to keep its habitat. More than 200 have joined since.

Which rice-and-beans breakfast staple do both Costa Rica and Nicaragua claim as their own national dish?

Gallo pinto means 'spotted rooster' in Spanish. Each country says it invented the dish, and its origin remains a sore point between them.

During Holy Week in Antigua Guatemala, processions walk over street carpets made mainly of which dyed material?

Sawdust carpets are made with stencils or freehand, only to be trampled by the very procession they are laid to greet. The Spanish brought the custom to Latin America in colonial times.

Which national animal of Belize, nicknamed the 'mountain cow', is the largest native land mammal in Central America?

The tapir is no cow: its closest living relatives are horses and rhinoceroses. The species found in Belize, Baird's tapir, is the largest of the tapirs native to the Americas.

At Ostional beach in Costa Rica, an 'arribada' is the synchronised mass arrival of thousands of which nesting animals?

Sea turtles of the olive ridley species come ashore together there in their thousands to lay eggs. Conservationists rank Ostional among the two most important nesting sites in the world for the species.

Which kingdom's failed 1690s colony on the Isthmus of Panama ruined its investors and hastened its union with England?

Scotland had sunk about a fifth of all the money circulating in the country into the venture. Its collapse weakened resistance to the Act of Union, completed in 1707.

Which US banana company lobbied Washington to act before the 1954 coup that toppled Guatemala's Jacobo Árbenz?

United Fruit was Guatemala's largest landowner, and the land reform it fought would have taken 40% of its holdings. Latin American journalists called the company 'el pulpo', the octopus.

Which spice native to India did Guatemala begin producing in greater quantities than India itself around 1980?

Cardamom reached Guatemala before the First World War, brought over by a German planter. Most of the country's crop comes from a single department, Alta Verapaz.

Which items picturing a smoking volcano did lobbyists mail to US senators to discredit a canal route through Nicaragua?

Postage stamps issued by Nicaragua itself showed its volcanoes, so the Panama lobby ransacked Washington's stamp dealers until it had enough for the whole Senate. The vote went Panama's way.

Which Salvadoran farming village, buried under ash around AD 600, is often called the 'Pompeii of the Americas'?

Joya de Cerén was smothered within hours, yet no human remains have been found there. An earthquake just before the eruption seems to have given the villagers time to flee.

Which Guatemalan novelist, author of the dictator novel 'El Señor Presidente', won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Miguel Ángel Asturias spent much of his later life in exile for opposing dictators in public. His Nobel helped to draw attention to the indigenous cultures of his homeland.

Which colourful layered textile panel is sewn by Guna women of Panama's San Blas Islands for their traditional blouses?

The mola is thought to have begun as body painting: Guna women wore the same geometric designs on their skin before stitching them in cloth traded from passing ships.

Which US Army doctor's war on mosquitoes curbed yellow fever and malaria so that the Panama Canal could be built?

William Gorgas had already driven yellow fever out of Havana, where cases fell from 784 to none within a year. In Panama he drained ponds and swamps, fumigated and put up mosquito netting.

Which Honduran-born general and liberal reformer was three times president of the Federal Republic of Central America?

Francisco Morazán brought in freedom of the press, of speech and of religion. After the union broke apart he was shot by a firing squad in Costa Rica, on the anniversary of independence.

Which conquistador, named 'Tonatiuh' by the Aztecs for his blond hair, went on to conquer Guatemala and El Salvador?

Pedro de Alvarado is remembered as the conqueror of much of Central America, yet he made a poor governor of the lands he took and kept leaving them in search of new adventures.

At which ancient Maya city does the 'sky-palace' Caana rise 43 metres, taller than any modern building in Belize?

Caracol once spread over about 200 square kilometres, far more ground than present-day Belize City covers, and supported more than twice that city's population.

Which rainforest bird is Panama's national bird and is depicted on the Panamanian coat of arms?

The harpy eagle has the largest talons of any living eagle and can carry off prey weighing about half as much as it does. It plucks tree-dwelling mammals straight from the branches.