Heritage · from c. 1500 BC
Lamanai was lived in for 3,000 years.
Did you know that Lamanai, whose name comes from the Maya term for 'submerged crocodile', was inhabited for about three thousand years, from the Early Preclassic until the 17th century, long after most Maya cities were abandoned?
Sources
Science · c. 1200 BC
Cuello's age was revised by 800 years.
Did you know that the Maya farming village of Cuello in northern Belize was first dated to 2000 BC, but later research corrected the date to about 1200 BC, the age of its earliest Swasey-style pottery?
Sources
Heritage · Late Preclassic
A Preclassic town ringed by canals.
Did you know that Cerros, a Late Preclassic Maya town on Corozal Bay, was ringed by a crescent-shaped canal network that enclosed raised fields and probably stored water to irrigate crops in the dry season?
Sources
Heritage · AD 562
Caracol humbled Tikal in 562.
Did you know that in AD 562 Caracol, in Belize's Maya Mountains, defeated mighty Tikal in what epigraphers call a 'star war', six years after Tikal had beaten Caracol in an 'axe war'?
Sources
Records · Classic period (found 1968)
A 4.4 kg jade sun-god head.
Did you know that a carved jade head of the Maya sun god Kinich Ahau found at Altun Ha in 1968 weighs 4.42 kilograms and stands 14.9 centimetres tall, and lay at the pelvis of a buried elite man?
Sources
Records · c. AD 650
Ancient Caracol outgrew modern Belize City.
Did you know that ancient Caracol covered around 200 square kilometres, an area larger than present-day Belize City, and at its height supported more than twice the modern city's population, perhaps around 100,000 people?
Sources
Heritage · from the 730s
Lubaantun was built without mortar.
Did you know that the Maya city of Lubaantun in southern Belize was built mostly of large black slate blocks laid without any mortar, unlike the limestone buildings typical of the region?
Sources
Myth or fact · Late Classic
The Crystal Maiden was probably a boy.
Did you know that the 'Crystal Maiden', the calcite-covered skeleton that is the most famous sight in Belize's Actun Tunichil Muknal cave, is now believed to be the skeleton of a 17-year-old boy?
Sources
Science · AD 950-1544
Maya Lamanai worked copper.
Did you know that Postclassic Lamanai has yielded copper objects that were apparently made with distinctly Mesoamerican metalworking techniques, showing that the Maya of northern Belize used and possibly produced metal before the Spanish arrived?
Sources
Heritage · Late Postclassic
Corozal sits on a Maya capital.
Did you know that the ruins of Santa Rita, now almost swallowed by Corozal Town, were probably Chactemal or Chetumal, the capital of one of the Maya provinces the Spanish later found, famous for its painted Postclassic murals?
Sources
Society · 1511
A Spanish castaway turned Maya war leader.
Did you know that Gonzalo Guerrero, a Spanish sailor shipwrecked off Yucatán around 1511, became a war captain for the Maya lord of Chetumal, married a Maya woman and fathered some of the first mestizo children in the Americas?
Sources
Heritage · 1531
The first Spanish town here failed.
Did you know that in 1531 the conquistador Alonso Dávila founded a Spanish town called Villa Real at Chetumal, but the local Maya resisted so fiercely that he and his men were forced to abandon it?
Sources
Heritage · 16th century
Spanish churches beside Maya temples.
Did you know that Spanish friars built two Roman Catholic churches at the ancient Maya city of Lamanai in the 16th century, whose ruins still stand beside the much older Maya temples?
Sources
Heritage · 1638-1695
Tipu stayed free for nearly 60 years.
Did you know that after a revolt in 1638 the Maya of Tipu, on the Macal River in western Belize, lived free of Spanish rule for almost sixty years, until Spanish soldiers used the town as a base in 1696?
Sources
Myth or fact · 1638 (legend)
The pirate Wallace probably never existed.
Did you know that the popular story that Belize was named after a Scottish buccaneer, Peter Wallace, who settled the river mouth in 1638, is probably a legend, since historians have found no reliable evidence that Wallace ever existed?
Sources
Language · 1677
The name first appears in 1677.
Did you know that the earliest recorded form of the name Belize is 'Rio Balis', written in 1677 by the Dominican friar José Delgado, who also noted the Sittee and Sibun rivers on his way along the coast?
Sources
Economy · 1763
Britain got the trees, Spain the land.
Did you know that the 1763 Treaty of Paris gave Britain the right to cut logwood on the Bay of Honduras coast while confirming that the land itself stayed under Spanish sovereignty?
Sources
Firsts · 1765
An admiral wrote the Baymen's rules down.
Did you know that in 1765 the Baymen's customary rules, including their tradition of elected magistrates, were written down as Burnaby's Code, named after Admiral Sir William Burnaby, one of the first written constitutions of the settlement?
Sources
Society · 1786
Mosquito Shore settlers were moved to Belize.
Did you know that under the 1786 Convention of London Britain agreed to move its settlers and their enslaved workers from Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast to Belize, where they could cut timber but not build forts or plantations?
Sources
Society · 1797
Belize's Garifuna came via exile.
Did you know that the Garifuna who settled southern Belize descend from people the British exiled from St Vincent via the Grenadine island of Baliceaux in 1797, of whom only about 2,500 survived the voyage to Roatán?
Sources
Records · 10 September 1798
A national battle with no defenders killed.
Did you know that the Battle of St George's Caye on 10 September 1798, now a national holiday, lasted only about two and a half hours, and the British commander John Moss reported that no one on his side was killed?
Sources
Records · 1812-1820
A cathedral built from ballast bricks.
Did you know that St John's Cathedral in Belize City, the oldest Anglican church in Central America, was built between 1812 and 1820 from bricks that had arrived as ships' ballast?
Sources
Heritage · 18 January 1816
Miskito kings were crowned in Belize.
Did you know that the kings of the Miskito people of Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast were crowned in Belize, including King George Frederic Augustus on 18 January 1816, with St John's Church serving as the coronation site?
Sources
Culture · 19 November 1832
Garifuna Settlement Day began in 1941.
Did you know that Garifuna Settlement Day marks an arrival officially dated 19 November 1832, and was created by activist Thomas Vincent Ramos in 1941 before becoming a national holiday in 1977?
Sources
Society · 1848-1856
Caste War refugees built northern Belize.
Did you know that between 1848 and 1856 more than 10,000 refugees from Yucatán's Caste War crossed the Rio Hondo into northern Belize, founding or enlarging towns such as Corozal and Orange Walk?
Sources
Myth or fact · 1859
An unbuilt road fuelled Guatemala's claim.
Did you know that the 1859 treaty fixing Belize's border with Guatemala included a clause on building a road to the Caribbean coast, and that because the road was never built Guatemala later declared the treaty void and claimed all of Belize?
Sources
Heritage · 1867
Rockets were used against the Icaiché Maya.
Did you know that after Icaiché Maya fighters under Marcos Canul routed British troops at San Pedro in December 1866, the British counter-offensive of 1867 used newly arrived Congreve rockets?
Sources
Heritage · 1 September 1872
Orange Walk's 1872 battle ended Canul's raids.
Did you know that in 1872 Icaiché Maya leader Marcos Canul attacked the town of Orange Walk, but a small West India Regiment detachment held its barracks for hours and Canul was fatally wounded?
Sources
Myth or fact · since 1892
Xunantunich is named after a ghost.
Did you know that Xunantunich, 'Stone Woman', is a modern name inspired by a ghost several people said they had seen there from 1892, a woman in white with fiery red eyes who vanishes into El Castillo's stone wall?
Sources
Records · 1923
A bridge still swung by hand.
Did you know that Belize City's Swing Bridge, built in Liverpool and installed in 1923, is one of the few manually operated swing bridges in the world still in use, turned by hand with a crank?
Sources
Myth or fact · claimed 1924
The 'Lubaantun' skull came from Sotheby's.
Did you know that the famous Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull, said to have been found at Lubaantun around 1924, was in fact bought by F. A. Mitchell-Hedges at a Sotheby's auction in London in 1943?
Sources
Society · 1926
Belize's benefactor never stepped ashore.
Did you know that Baron Bliss, the English benefactor whose trust still funds Belizean projects and a yearly regatta, died on his yacht in 1926 without ever having set foot on the Belizean mainland?
Sources
Records · 10 September 1931
The deadliest storm hit on a holiday.
Did you know that the 1931 hurricane, Belize's deadliest with about 2,500 deaths, struck Belize City on 10 September while many residents were out celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of St George's Caye?
Sources
Geography · 1945
Guatemalan maps showed Belize as theirs.
Did you know that Guatemala's 1945 constitution declared British Honduras part of Guatemala, which is why Guatemalan maps long showed Belize as the country's twenty-third department?
Sources
Society · 31 December 1949
A devaluation sparked the independence movement.
Did you know that Belize's independence movement was born on the night of 31 December 1949, when the governor devalued the British Honduras dollar and angry activists formed the People's Committee, forerunner of the People's United Party?
Sources
Language · from 1958
Low German is spoken in Belize.
Did you know that Mennonites who began arriving from Mexico in 1958 now number about 15,000 in Belize, many of whom still speak Plautdietsch, a Low German dialect, in farming colonies such as Spanish Lookout and Shipyard?
Sources
Society · 31 October 1961
A hurricane camp became a town.
Did you know that the town of Hattieville began as a tent city for people left homeless by Hurricane Hattie in 1961, a storm that killed 307 people in the colony, far fewer than 1931 thanks to early warnings?
Sources
Sport · 1968
Still waiting for a first Olympic medal.
Did you know that Belize first competed at the Olympic Games in 1968 as British Honduras, and despite taking part in almost every Summer Games since, it has never won an Olympic medal?
Sources
Records · 1970
The smallest capital on the American mainland.
Did you know that Belmopan, founded as a planned capital in 1970 after Hurricane Hattie, is the smallest capital city by population in the continental Americas, with about 20,750 people in 2022?
Sources
Nature · 1971
Cousteau put the Blue Hole on the map.
Did you know that Jacques Cousteau brought his ship Calypso to the Great Blue Hole in 1971 to chart its depths, and called it one of the top five scuba diving sites in the world?
Sources
Language · 1 June 1973
Renamed Belize eight years before independence.
Did you know that the country was officially called British Honduras until 1 June 1973, when it was renamed Belize, more than eight years before it actually became independent?
Sources
Records · 1981
The only flag with people on it.
Did you know that Belize is the only country whose national flag shows human beings as a major design element, two woodcutters holding tools beside the coat of arms, a design that won a 1981 competition?
Sources
Nature · 1983
A zoo born from a film shoot.
Did you know that the Belize Zoo was founded in 1983 by Sharon Matola to care for 17 tame animals left behind after the filming of a wildlife documentary, and now houses only species native to Belize?
Sources
Firsts · 1986
The first reserve for jaguars.
Did you know that the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, created in 1986 after a jaguar study by Alan Rabinowitz, was the first protected area set up specifically to protect the jaguar?
Sources
Economy · 1989
A Belizean sauce led the habanero wave.
Did you know that Marie Sharp's sauce, made in Belize, was the first habanero pepper sauce to win national distribution in the United States, in 1989, and is often made with carrots as a base?
Sources
Society · 1991
Guatemala waited ten years to recognise Belize.
Did you know that Guatemala recognised Belize as an independent state only in 1991, ten years after independence, and the main British garrison that had guarded Belize against invasion left three years later?
Sources
Culture · 2001
Garifuna culture got UNESCO recognition.
Did you know that in 2001 UNESCO proclaimed the language, dance and music of the Garifuna of Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity?
Sources
Economy · 2005
Oil was found in a Mennonite colony.
Did you know that Belize's first commercial oil field was discovered in 2005 at Spanish Lookout, a farming colony founded by Mennonites who had come to Belize in 1958?
Sources
Firsts · 2008
Belize's first black Prime Minister.
Did you know that Dean Barrow, sworn in as Prime Minister on 8 February 2008 after his party won 25 of 31 seats, was the first black person to hold the office in Belize?
Sources
Nature · 2018
An oil ban rescued the reef's status.
Did you know that the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System was taken off UNESCO's list of World Heritage in Danger in 2018, after nine years, largely because Belize banned oil exploration across its entire maritime zone in 2017?
Sources
Firsts · 2021
The Commonwealth's first Maya governor-general.
Did you know that Froyla Tzalam, a Mopan Maya woman from Toledo who became Governor-General of Belize in 2021, is the first person of Maya descent to serve as governor-general of any Commonwealth country?
Sources
Economy · 2021
Belize swapped debt for ocean protection.
Did you know that in 2021 Belize bought back about a quarter of its national debt at a 45 per cent discount in a 'blue bond' deal arranged with The Nature Conservancy, pledging the savings to protect its reefs and coasts?
Sources
Heritage · 2025
Caracol's founding king's tomb was found.
Did you know that in 2025 archaeologists found the tomb of Te' K'ab Chaak, Caracol's founding king who took the throne in AD 331, the first identifiable ruler's tomb found in over four decades of digging there?
Sources
Records · 12 March 2025
Two seats won without a vote.
Did you know that in the March 2025 election the People's United Party won 26 of 31 seats, two of them unopposed for the first time in Belize's history, while turnout fell to its lowest since independence?
Sources
Nature · August 2025
A three-nation reserve for the Maya Forest.
Did you know that in August 2025 Belize, Mexico and Guatemala agreed to create a tri-national reserve of about 5.7 million hectares in the Maya Forest, which Mexico's president called the second biggest nature reserve in Latin America?
Sources
Geography · 19 March 2026
Three countries now dispute the Sapodilla Cayes.
Did you know that on 19 March 2026 the International Court of Justice allowed Guatemala to join Belize's case against Honduras over the tiny, uninhabited Sapodilla Cayes, so three countries now argue over the same atoll?
Sources
Nature ·
The Blue Hole was once dry land.
Did you know that the Great Blue Hole is a circular marine sinkhole 318 metres across and about 124 metres deep, and stalactites in its caves prove it once stood above sea level during the ice ages?
Sources
Records ·
The world's second largest reef system.
Did you know that the Belize Barrier Reef, part of the reef system running from Mexico to Honduras, is the second largest coral reef system in the world after Australia's Great Barrier Reef and Belize's top tourist destination?
Sources
Myth or fact ·
Victoria Peak is not Belize's highest point.
Did you know that Victoria Peak, long called Belize's highest mountain, is actually second at 1,120 metres, and the true summit is Doyle's Delight, at 1,124 metres, named after Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World?
Sources
Nature ·
The 'mountain cow' is a giant tapir.
Did you know that Belize's national animal, Baird's tapir, nicknamed the 'mountain cow', is the largest native land mammal in both Central and South America?
Sources
Nature ·
A toucan and a black orchid represent Belize.
Did you know that the keel-billed toucan, with its huge rainbow-coloured bill, is Belize's national bird, while its national flower is the black orchid, an epiphyte known to botanists as Prosthechea cochleata?
Sources
Language ·
Central America's only English-official country.
Did you know that Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language, a legacy of British rule, although only about 5.6 per cent of people speak it as their main language at home?
Sources
Language ·
Kriol is Belize's everyday language.
Did you know that about 37 per cent of Belizeans consider Kriol, an English-based creole with words and grammar drawn from African languages such as Akan, to be their primary language, and it serves as the country's lingua franca?
Sources
Geography ·
Central America's emptiest country.
Did you know that Belize, with about 400,000 people counted in 2022, is the least populated and least densely populated country in Central America, even though it is larger than El Salvador?
Sources
Science ·
Pirates' dyewood still stains lab slides.
Did you know that logwood, the tree the Baymen came to Belize to cut for dye, is still the source of haematoxylin, a stain used every day in hospital laboratories to colour tissue samples under the microscope?
Sources
Culture ·
Garifuna bread is made with a woven press.
Did you know that Garifuna cooks in Belize make ereba, a flat cassava bread, by squeezing grated cassava in a long woven strainer called a ruguma and baking the flour on a large iron griddle, often eaten with fish and hudutu?
Sources
Myth or fact ·
Madonna's San Pedro may not be in Belize.
Did you know that Ambergris Caye's San Pedro markets itself as 'La Isla Bonita' after Madonna's 1987 hit, although the song never says where its San Pedro is, and the island's identity is still debated?
Sources
Nature ·
Belize's oldest wildlife sanctuary protects boobies.
Did you know that Half Moon Caye on Lighthouse Reef has been protected as a bird sanctuary since 1924, Belize's oldest wildlife protection, to safeguard a rare breeding colony of red-footed boobies?
Sources
Geography ·
No Pacific coast for Belize.
Did you know that Belize is the only country in Central America with no Pacific coastline, facing only the Caribbean Sea, and its mainland is only about 290 kilometres long and 110 kilometres wide?
Sources