Honduras is the second largest country in Central America and lies between latitudes 12°58’ and 16°02’ south and longitude 83° 10’ and 89°22’ east with a land area of 112, 492 square Kilometers. Bordered to the North by the Caribbean Sea (the Antilles), to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, and to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca which is shares with Nicaragua and El Salvador. Honduras has three major geomorphological regions largely composed of mountains that cover over 82% of the country with dense forest. The highest peak is at 2.849 meters; more than 75% of the land has slopes greater than 25 percent. The rest of the country is composed of the Northern Coastal Plain or the Caribbean were and the Coastal Plain region of the Pacific or the Pacific lowlands. La Mosquita region is a large undeveloped lowland jungle in the northeast. In 2009, Honduras had an estimated population of 7,465,998 inhabitants with a density of 65 inhabitants per km2 . Of the 7.4 million inhabitants 52% live in rural areas. The population growth rate has been constant at a rate of 2.0 since 2005 . The Honduran population is predominantly young. In 1999 37% of the population was between 0 and less than 14 years. Health indicators have improved over the past decades, infant mortality dropped from 33.8 in 2005 to 29.7 per a thousand in 2009 and life expectancy has also at a good 74 years. Although Honduras is one of the poorest countries Central America it has been making substantial progress, Per capita income has improved from a low of US$ 1416 in 2005 to $ 1.918 estimated in 2009 by the World Bank. The Honduran economy is highly dependent on agriculture. Forests take up over 41% of the total area and 27% is agricultural land. Over 39.2% of the population is employed in Agriculture. The country exports coffee and Banana’s which suffered greatly after Hurricane Mitch in 1998 .
Selected Indicators for Impacts and Vulnerabilities
