Cortés (department)

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Cortés is one of the 18 departments into which the Central American nation of Honduras is divided. The department covers a total surface area of 3,954 km² and, in 2005, had an estimated population of 1,200,000. The Merendón Mountains rise in western Cortés, but the department is mostly a tropical lowland, the Sula Valley, crossed by the Ulúa and Chamelecon rivers.

It was created in 1893 from parts of the departments of Santa Bárbara and Yoro. The departmental capital is San Pedro Sula. Main cities also include the sea ports of Puerto Cortés and Omoa.

Puerto Cortés is the largest and most modern deepwater port in Honduras and the entire Central American Atlantic coast. It handles cargo for Honduras and the neighboring republics of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Omoa is famous for its beaches and the Fort of San Fernando, a massive fort built by the Spaniards in late colonial times to defend the mainland from pirates, complete with cannons, dungeons, ramparts, and lookout towers. After independence, the fort was used as a prison, and later declared a national monument.

Cortés is the economic heartland of Honduras, as the Sula Valley is the country's main agricultural and industrial region. US banana companies arrived in the area in the late 19th Century, and established vast plantations, as well as infrastructure to ship the fruit to the United States. San Pedro Sula attracted substantial numbers of European, Central American, and Palestinian and Lebanese immigrants. Industry flourished in the department, and Cortés today hosts most of the country's assembly plants, known as maquilas.

[edit] Municipalities

Departments of Honduras
Atlántida • Bay Islands • Choluteca • Colón • Comayagua • Copán • Cortés • El Paraíso • Francisco Morazán • Gracias a Dios • Intibucá • La Paz • Lempira • Ocotepeque • Olancho • Santa Bárbara • Valle • Yoro