A British colony for more than a century, it was known as British Honduras until 1973, and became an independent nation in 1981. It is bordered to the south and west by Guatemala, to the north and northwest by Mexico and to the east by the Caribbean Sea. Belize has a tropical climate with pronounced wet and dry seasons, although there are significant variations in weather patterns by region. Temperatures vary according to elevation, proximity to the coast, and the moderating effects of the northeast trade winds off the Caribbean.
Tourism has been, along with the sugar industry, the most important financial stronghold for Belize for decades. With the building of the port in Belize City, tourists can take cruises to the country and solely visit the tourist village that was built primarily for them.
The Maya ruins of Belize include a number of well-known and historically important pre-Columbian Maya archaeological sites. Perhaps the most important, Caracol ('the snail' in Spanish), is located in western Belize, near the border with Guatemala and within the Belizean part of the Peten rainforest. Caracol was the center of one of the largest Maya kingdoms and today contains the extant remains of thousands of structures.
Many coral reefs, cays, and islands to the east—such as Ambergris Caye, Lighthouse Reef, Glover Reef, and the Turneffe Islands—are part of Belize's territory, forming the Belize Barrier Reef, the longest in the western hemisphere stemming approximately 322 km (200 miles) and the second longest in the world after the Great Barrier Reef.
