Belize

The only mainland state in the group, and the only English-speaking country in Central America - both facts stemming from timber rather than sugar. British buccaneers began cutting logwood, used for textile dye, along this coast in the seventeenth century, and Spain, which claimed the territory, alternately tolerated and expelled them. The Baymen's victory at St George's Caye in 1798 settled the matter in practice. Logwood gave way to mahogany, an extractive economy that needed enslaved labour in small mobile gangs rather than plantation crews, which produced a different social structure from the islands. Britain declared the colony of British Honduras only in 1862. The territory holds a large Maya population, the descendants of the civilisation whose cities at Caracol and Lamanai are here, alongside Garifuna arrivals from the eastern Caribbean, Mestizo refugees from the Yucatan caste war of the 1840s, and later Mennonite settlers. Guatemala inherited Spain's claim and has pressed it ever since, which delayed independence until 21 September 1981 and kept a British garrison in the country until 1994. The dispute went to the International Court of Justice by agreement in 2019. The barrier reef offshore is the largest in the northern hemisphere. Belmopan was built inland after a hurricane destroyed the old capital in 1961. Belize City remains the largest town despite losing capital status. The Great Blue Hole is a flooded limestone sinkhole offshore. The country has the lowest population density in Central America. Creole, Spanish, Maya languages and Garifuna are all widely spoken. Belize joined Caricom in 1974 and the Central American integration system in 2000, belonging fully to neither region.

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