El Paraíso is one of the 18 departments (departamentos) into which Honduras is divided.
Olancho is the largest of all the 18 departments into which Honduras is divided. The department covers a total surface area of 24,057 km² and has an estimated 2015 population of 537,306 inhabitants.
La Esperanza is the capital city and a municipality of the same name of the department of Intibucá, Honduras. La Esperanza is famous for having the coolest climate in Honduras. It is considered the heart of the Ruta Lenca, a region of Lenca ethnic influence that spans Honduras from Santa Rosa de Copan to Choluteca. Sites on the Lenca Trail have been designated by the government and United Nations development in order to encourage more cultural tourism, and help create new markets for the traditional crafts, such as pottery, practiced by the Lenca, in order to preserve their culture.
Dolores is a municipality in the Honduran department of Copán.
Olanchito is a municipality in the department of Yoro, Honduras, and a town with a population of 49,750 as of 2023. The municipality was founded in 1530 and comprises 70 villages, approximately 300 hamlets, and a population of 124,286. It is located 107 miles (172 km) northeast of Tegucigalpa, the country's capital. Olanchito operates in the Central Time Zone, with a UTC offset of -6 hours. The city is the birthplace of many popular figures of Honduran literature such as Ramón Amaya Amador, whose manuscripts, collection of books, writing table, and ashes are located in Olanchito. Known locally as the Civic City, Olanchito's main industry is agriculture.
Campamento is a municipality in the south west of the Honduran department of Olancho, south of Concordia and west of Juticalpa. The municipality of Campamento is located at the entrance to Olancho, along the main highway from Tegucigalpa. The town of Campamento is located near the center of the municipality, just north of the main highway.
Dulce Nombre de Culmí is a municipality in the northeastern region of the Honduran department of Olancho. It lies approximately 17 miles southeast of San Esteban and about 27 miles northeast of Catacamas. The Ríos Guampú and Culmí pass through this municipality.
Juticalpa is the capital of Olancho Department in Honduras, with a population of 75,790, and the municipal seat of Juticalpa Municipality. Situated in a broad river valley alongside the Rio Juticalpa, the town is a commercial centre for much of Olancho's ranching and agricultural economy.
Patuca is a municipality in the south of the Honduran department of Olancho, east of Juticalpa and south of Catacamas.
San Esteban is a municipality in the northeast of the Honduran department of Olancho, west of Dulce Nombre de Culmí, east of Gualaco and north of Catacamas. Costa Rican author Oscar Núñez Oliva set his 2000 novel Los Gallos de San Esteban in the municipality.
Liga de Ascenso is the second division of Honduran football; it was founded on 17 December 1979 as Segunda División and renamed Liga de Ascenso on 21 July 2002. The league is divided into 4 groups: Zona Norte y Atlántica, Zona Norte y Occidente, Zona Centro y Sur, Zona Sur y Oriente. The top 2 teams of each group qualifies for the liguilla (play-offs). Each season is divided into two tournaments, Apertura (opening) and Clausura (closing). The champions of the opening and closing tournament compete for the promotion to Liga Nacional de Fútbol de Honduras in a two-legged match.
El Esquilinchuche is a small village in the municipality of Juticalpa, Olancho, Honduras.
Talgua Cave,, is a cave located in the Olancho Valley in the municipality of Catacamas in northeastern Honduras. The misnomer “The Cave of the Glowing Skulls” was given to the cave because of the way that light reflects off of the calcite deposits found on the skeletal remains found there. The site has gained the interest of archaeologists studying cave burials of Central America and of Mesoamerica as one of the most extensive Early to Middle Pre-Classic ossuary cave sites currently known to have been in contact with the Maya societies of nearby Mesoamerica. It provides many valuable clues to how the inhabitants of the Talgua Cave may have been an important link between Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and parts further south and east in Central America and extending into those societies in northern South America, a region known as the Isthmo-Colombian Area.
The Guayape River is a major river that drains much of the Department of Olancho and central Honduras. The largest tributary to the Guayape is the Río Jalán, which joins it at El Plomo, not far from the town of Juticalpa. From there the river passes many small towns, including El Esquilinchuche. The largest bridge over the Guayape is the Puente del Burro, a modern cement structure that replaced the huge steel suspension bridge that had stood for decades after being built by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and was destroyed by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Far downriver from the bridge, the Guayape joins with the Guayambre River, from then on the waterway is known as the Río Patuca.
Water resources management (WRM) in Honduras is a work in progress and at times has advanced; however, unstable investment and political climates, strong weather phenomena, poverty, lack of adequate capacity, and deficient infrastructures have and will continue to challenge developments to water resource management. The State of Honduras is working on a new General Water Law to replace the 1927 Law on Using National Waters and designed to regulate water use and management. The new water law will also create a Water Authority, and the National Council of Water Resources which will serve as an advising and consultative body.
San Juancito is a small town in central Honduras, located 40 km northeast of Tegucigalpa, the nation's capital. The town is in the department of Francisco Morazán. Including the dependent hamlets of Nuevo Rosario, Guacamaya, and Plan Grande, the population totals at about 1400. Its central neighborhood is depicted on the back of the 500-lempira bill.
Pech or Pesh is a Chibchan language spoken in Honduras. It was formerly known as Paya, and continues to be referred to in this manner by several sources, though there are negative connotations associated with this term. Alternatively, it has rarely also been referred to as Seco, Bayano, Taia, Towka, and Poyuai. According to Ethnologue there were a thousand speakers in 1993. It is spoken near the north-central coast of Honduras, in the Dulce Nombre de Culmí municipality of Olancho Department.
La Ciudad Blanca is a legendary settlement said to be located in the Mosquitia region of the Gracias a Dios Department in eastern Honduras. It is also known by the Pech name Kahã Kamasa. This extensive area of rainforest, which includes the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, has long been the subject of multidisciplinary research. Archaeologists refer to it as being a part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area of the Americas, one in which the predominant indigenous languages have included those in the Chibchan and Misumalpan families. Due to the many variants of the story in the region, most professional archaeologists doubt that it refers to any one actual settlement, much less one representing a city of the Pre-Columbian era. They point out that there are multiple large archaeological sites in the region and that references to the legendary White City cannot be proven to refer to any single place.
The network of highways in Honduras is managed by the Secretariat of public works, transport and housing (SOPTRAVI), through the General Directorate of Roads, which is responsible for planning construction and maintenance work on the country's roads. Honduras has more than 15,400 kilometres (9,600 mi) of roads. Up to 1999, only 3,126 kilometres (1,942 mi) had been paved.
The geology of Honduras includes Paleozoic metamorphic rocks, such as the Cacaguapa Schist as its basement rocks. Together with Nicaragua and El Salvador it is underlain by the Chortis Block continental fragment. Currently, the Valle de Catacamas basin extends along the Guayape fault for 290 kilometers. Early tectonic research in 1977 suggested a possible origin for the underlying land in the Pacific Ocean rather than on the Caribbean Plate.
Honduras 
