Izabal () is one of the 22

departments of Guatemala The Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala is divided into 22 Department (country subdivision), departments (Spanish language, Spanish: ''departamentos'') which in turn are divided into 340 Municipalities of Guatemala, municipalities. The departments ...

. Its coastal areas form part of the homeland of the

Garifuna people The Garifuna people ( or ; pl. Garínagu in Garifuna) are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and traditionally speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language. The Garifuna ...

. 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 The Gulf of Honduras or the Bay of Honduras is a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea, indenting the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. From north to south, it runs for approximately 200 km (125 miles) from Dangriga, Belize, to La Cei ...

, 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 Alta Verapaz () is a department in the north central part of Guatemala. The capital and chief city of the department is Cobán. Verapaz is bordered to the north by El Petén, to the east by Izabal, to the south by Zacapa, El Progreso, and ...

to the west, and

Zacapa Zacapa () is the departmental capital municipality of Zacapa Department, one of the 22 Departments of Guatemala. It is located approximately from Guatemala City Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capit ...

to the south. The Izabal Department surrounds

Lake Izabal Lake Izabal (), also known as the Golfo Dulce, is the largest lake in Guatemala with a surface area of and a maximum depth of . The Polochic River is the largest river that drains into the lake. The lake, which is only a metre above sea level, ...

(or Lago de Izabal), which is Guatemala's largest lake (about 48 km long and 24 km wide, with an area of about 590 km²). The

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

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 Puerto Barrios () is a city in Guatemala, located within the Gulf of Honduras. The city is located on Bahia de Amatique. Puerto Barrios is the departmental seat of Izabal department and is the administrative seat of Puerto Barrios municipality. ...

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

. The department of Izabal includes the ports of

(the departmental seat),

Santo Tomás de Castilla Santo Tomás de Castilla, officially known as Mátías de Gálvez though it popularly retains its former name, is a port city in the Izabal Department, Guatemala. It lies at Amatique Bay off the Gulf of Honduras and is administratively a part of ...

, 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 Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

ruins of Quirigua.

Municipalities

El Estor El Estor is a town and a municipality in the Izabal department of Guatemala. As of the 2018 census, the town's population was 20,489. The population of El Estor consists largely of Qʼeqchiʼ speaking indigenous people . History Before roads ...

# Livingston # Los Amates #

Morales Morales is a Spanish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Alfredo Morales (born 1990), American footballer * Alvaro Morales (disambiguation), several people * Amado Morales (born 1947), Puerto Rican javelin thrower * Bartolomé Mo ...

References

External links

*
Interactive department mapIzabal, Green Caribbean
{{Authority control Departments of Guatemala

Municipalities

See also

References

External links