The Mosquito Coast is the area along the eastern coast of present-day Nicaragua and Honduras. It was named after the local Miskito Nation and was long dominated by British interests and known as the Mosquito Kingdom. From 1860 suzerainty of the area was transferred to Nicaragua with the name Mosquito Reserve, and in November 1894 the Mosquito Coast was militarily incorporated into Nicaragua. However, in 1960, the northern part was granted to Honduras by the International Court of Justice.
Gracias a Dios is one of the 18 departments (departamentos) into which Honduras is divided. The departmental capital is Puerto Lempira; until 1975 it was Brus Laguna.
The Miskitos are a native people in Central America. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande de Matagalpa, Nicaragua, along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean zone. Their population is estimated at 700,000 people as of 2021, according to the official Miskito Database.
During Spain's New World Empire, its mainland coastal possessions surrounding the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico were referred to collectively as the Spanish Main. The southern portion of these coastal possessions were known as the Province of Tierra Firme, or the "Mainland Province". The Province of Tierra Firme, or simply Tierra Firme, was also called Costa Firme.
Gracias is a small Honduran town/municipality that was founded in 1536, and is the capital of Lempira Department.
The Misumalpan languages are a small family of languages spoken by indigenous peoples on the east coast of Nicaragua and nearby areas. The name "Misumalpan" was devised by John Alden Mason and is composed of syllables from the names of the family's three members Miskito, Sumo languages and Matagalpan. It was first recognized by Walter Lehmann in 1920. While all the languages of the Matagalpan branch are now extinct, the Miskito and Sumu languages are alive and well: Miskito has almost 200,000 speakers and serves as a second language for speakers of other indigenous languages in the Mosquito Coast. According to Hale, most speakers of Sumu also speak Miskito.
The Wangki river in Miskitu or Río Coco, in Spanish, formerly known as the Río Segovia, Cape River, or Yara River, is a river located on the border of northern Nicaragua and southern Honduras. It is the longest river that runs entirely within the Central American isthmus with a total length of 841 km (523 mi).
Hurricane Edith was the strongest hurricane to form during the 1971 Atlantic hurricane season and the southernmost landfalling Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic at the time. Edith developed from a tropical wave on September 5 and quickly strengthened into a hurricane in the Caribbean Sea. Edith rapidly intensified on September 9 and made landfall on Cape Gracias a Dios as a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. Being a category 5 hurricane, Edith peaked at only 943 mbar (hPa), making Edith the least intense category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record. It quickly lost intensity over Central America and after briefly entering the Gulf of Honduras it crossed the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. After moving across the Gulf of Mexico a trough turned the storm to the northeast and Edith, after having restrengthened while accelerating towards the coast, made landfall on Louisiana with winds of 105 mph (169 km/h) on September 16. Edith steadily weakened over land and dissipated over Georgia on September 18.
Rosalind Bank, also called Rosalinda or Rosa Linda Bank, is a large, completely submerged bank or atoll in the western Caribbean Sea. It is the culmination of an area of coral reef, some 300 kilometres (190 mi) long, that extends eastward from Cabo Gracias a Dios. The bank area is part of an extensive structure, known as Nicaragua Rise, that continues further east through Pedro Bank towards Jamaica.
Gracias a Dios may refer to:
Honduras has been inhabited by a number of indigenous peoples, the most powerful of which, until the ninth century CE, were the Maya. The western-central part of Honduras was inhabited by the Lenca while other indigenous peoples settled in the northeast and coastal regions. These peoples had their conflicts but maintained commercial relationships with each other and with other populations as distant as Panama and Mexico.
The Nakunta River is a river in the Gracias a Dios Department of Honduras that exits into the Caratasca Lagoon a few miles south of Puerto Lempira. It is 115 kilometers (71 mi) in length.
The western Caribbean zone is a region consisting of the Caribbean coasts of Central America and Colombia, from the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico to the Caribbean region in northern Colombia, and the islands west of Jamaica are also included. The zone emerged in the late sixteenth century as the Spanish failed to completely conquer many sections of the coast, and northern European powers supported opposition to Spain, sometimes through alliances with local powers.
The Miskito Sambu, also known simply as the Miskito, are an ethnic group of mixed cultural ancestry occupying a portion of the Caribbean coast of Central America known as the Mosquito Coast region. Although older records, beginning with Spanish documents of the early 18th century, refer to the group as "Mosquitos Zambos", modern ethnographic terminology uses the term Miskito.
The Real Audiencia of Santiago de Guatemala, simply known as the Audiencia of Guatemala or the Audiencia of Los Confines, was a Real Audiencia in the Imperial Spanish territory in Central America known as the Captaincy General of Guatemala (1609-1821). The Audiencia's presiding officer, the president, was the head of the government of the area. The Audiencia was initially created by decrees of November 20, 1542 and September 13, 1543, and had its seat in Antigua Guatemala.
Hurricane Paula was a small hurricane that struck Honduras and Cuba in October 2010. The eighteenth tropical cyclone, sixteenth named storm, and ninth hurricane of the season, Paula developed from a low pressure area over the southwestern Caribbean Sea on October 11. Moving northwestward, it slowly organized and was upgraded to a tropical storm shortly thereafter. Around midday on October 11, Paula made landfall near Cabo Gracias a Dios at the border of Honduras and Nicaragua. In northeastern Honduras, strong winds destroyed several homes, while rainfall destroyed a few roads and dozens of buildings, include a school and a police station. Favorable conditions such as low wind shear and warm sea surface temperatures allowed Paula to reach hurricane status early on October 12. Further intensification occurred, and the storm peaked with winds of 105 mph (165 km/h) while curving northward on October 13.
The 1935 Jérémie hurricane, commonly referred to as the 1935 Haiti hurricane, was a highly destructive and catastrophic tropical cyclone that impacted the Greater Antilles and Honduras in October 1935, killing well over 2,000 people. Developing on October 18 over the southwestern Caribbean Sea, the storm proceeded to strike eastern Jamaica and southeastern Cuba while overwhelming southwestern Haiti in a deluge of rain. The hurricane—a Category 1 at its peak—completed an unusual reversal of its path on October 23, heading southwestward toward Central America. Weakened by its interaction with Cuba, the storm soon regained strength and made its final landfall near Cabo Gracias a Dios in Honduras on October 25. The cyclone weakened upon moving inland and dissipated two days later.
The Honduras–Nicaragua border is the roughly 950-kilometre-long (590 mi) international boundary between Honduras and Nicaragua, running from the Gulf of Fonseca on the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. The Coco River, which flows generally northeast to the Caribbean, forms more than half of the border.
The Spanish conquest of Honduras was a 16th-century conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas in which the territory that now comprises the Republic of Honduras, one of the seven states of Central America, was incorporated into the Spanish Empire. In 1502, the territory was claimed for the king of Spain by Christopher Columbus on his fourth and final trip to the New World. The territory that now comprises Honduras was inhabited by a mix of indigenous peoples straddling a transitional cultural zone between Mesoamerica to the northwest, and the Intermediate Area to the southeast. Indigenous groups included Maya, Lenca, Pech, Miskitu, Mayangna (Sumu), Jicaque, Pipil and Chorotega. Two indigenous leaders are particularly notable for their resistance against the Spanish; the Maya leader Sicumba, and the Lenca ruler referred to as Lempira.
Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the largest country in the Central American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the northwest, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Tropical cyclones are common in the country, with an average of one storm a year. The coast is especially subject to destructive tropical storms and hurricanes, particularly from July through October. The high winds and floods, accompanying these storms often cause considerable destruction of property. Hurricanes or heavy rains in the central highlands where agriculture has destroyed much of the natural vegetation also cause considerable crop damage and soil erosion. One of the deadliest hurricanes to hit Nicaragua has been Hurricane Mitch in 1998, in which the storm killed thousands in the country.
