Honduras is a plateau, consisting of broad, fertile plains broken by deep valleys, and traversed by mountain ranges in a northwestern to southwestern direction. The mountains, which are volcanic in origin, rise to maximum elevations of more than 2800 m (more than 9186 ft). Most of the country's rivers drain to the Atlantic Ocean. Navigable Atlantic rivers include the Ulúa, which drains approximately one-third of the country, and the Coco. Forests, covering about 31 percent of the land, yield valuable hardwoods and softwoods. Fertile pasturelands provide the basis for increasingly productive dairy farming and livestock raising. Valuable mineral deposits, such as lead and zinc, are also present.
The climate of Honduras is tropical, but is tempered by the higher elevations of the interior. The mean annual temperature in the interior is about 21.1° C (about 70° F). The low-lying coastal regions, however, are warmer, and the humidity is oppressive; the mean annual temperature here averages 26.7° C (80° F). The dry season prevails from November to May; the average annual rainfall ranges from 1016 mm (40 in) in some mountain valleys to 2540 mm (100 in) along the northern coast.
About 90 percent of the population is mestizo (persons of Spanish and Native American ancestry); the remainder are Native Americans, blacks, and whites. The population is about 60 percent rural. Spanish is the official language and is spoken by nearly all the Honduran people. English is spoken by some people in the north, and the Native Americans have retained their languages. About 85 percent of the people are Roman Catholic; Protestants constitute a small minority.
Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere with an extraordinarily unequal distribution of income, is banking on expanded trade privileges under the Enhanced Caribbean Basin Initiative and on debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. While the country has met most of its macroeconomic targets, it failed to meet the IMF's goals to liberalize its energy and telecommunications sectors. Growth remains dependent on the status of the US economy, its major trading partner, on commodity prices, particularly coffee, and on containment of the recent rise in crime.
The Honduran government is democratic constitutional republic. Its chief of state is President Manuel ZELAYA Rosales (since 27 January 2006). The Honduran legal system is rooted in Roman and Spanish civil law with increasing influence of English common law. Recent judicial reforms include abandoning Napoleonic legal codes in favor of the oral adversarial system.