Izabal () is one of the 22
departments of Guatemala. Its coastal areas form part of the homeland of the
Garifuna people.
Izabal is bordered to the north by
Belize
Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...
, to the northeast by the
Gulf of Honduras, to the east by
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...
, and by the Guatemalan departments of
Petén to the northwest,
Alta Verapaz to the west, and
Zacapa to the south.
The Izabal Department surrounds
Lake Izabal (or Lago de Izabal), which is Guatemala's largest lake (about 48 km long and 24 km wide, with an area of about 590 km
2). The
Spanish Colonial fort of San Felipe, now a Guatemalan national monument, overlooks the point where the lake flows into the
Río Dulce.
The small town of
Izabal is on the south shore of the lake; before the construction of the ports of
Livingston and
Puerto Barrios in the 19th century this was Guatemala's main
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
port and was the original seat of Izabal department; nowadays, however, Izabal town is a remote village that gets little traffic.
From the area around Lake Izabal, the Department of Izabal stretches along the Río Dulce to the coast of the
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
.
The department of Izabal includes the ports of
Puerto Barrios (the departmental seat),
Santo Tomás de Castilla,
Livingston and Guatemala's free trade zone
Zolic. Izabal also includes the
Pre-Columbian
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...
Maya ruins of
Quirigua.
Municipalities
#
El Estor
#
Livingston
#
Los Amates
#
Morales
#
Puerto Barrios
See also
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*
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Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio
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EXMIBAL
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Franja Transversal del Norte
*
Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán
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José María Orellana
José María Orellana Pinto (11 July 1872 – 26 September 1926) was a Guatemalan political and military leader. He was chief of staff of President Manuel Estrada Cabrera and President of Guatemala between 1921 and 1926, after overthrowing Cons ...
*
Puerto Barrios
*
Quiriguá
*
Rafael Carrera
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Santo Tomás de Castilla
*
United Fruit Company
References
External links
*
Interactive department mapIzabal, Green Caribbean
{{Authority control
Departments of Guatemala