Belize
or BRITISH HONDURAS, a British colony, washed on the E. by the Bay of Honduras, in the Caribbean Sea, and elsewhere surrounded by Guatemala and Mexico. It forms the S. E. part of the peninsula of Yucatan, and measuring 80 by 60 miles, has an area of 8,592 square miles. The river Belize traverses the middle of the country, and the Rio Hondo and the Sarstoon form respectively its N. W. and its S. boundary. The Cockscomb Mountains (4,000 feet) are the highest eminences, the land all along the coast being low and swampy. The country has a general tropical fertility; its chief exports are mahogany and logwood, besides sugar, coffee, cotton, sarsaparilla, bananas, plantains, and india rubber. The early settlers were buccaneers, then logwood cutters, who were frequently attacked by the Spaniards, but since 1798, when they repulsed a fleet and a land force, their occupation has been formally acquiesced in. Since 1862 Belize has ranked as a British colony, with a lieutenant-governor, whose rank was raised, in 1884, to that of governor. Pop. about 42, Belize, the capital, is a depot for British goods for Central America. Pop. about 11,000. 42,000.