At the start of the 20th century, following the founding of a company in 1899 by the Vaccaro brothers of New Orleans, Honduras earned it's nickname as the Banana Republic. This company later became The Standard Fruit Company and made bananas the major export crop of Honduras. The United Fruit Company of Boston who controlled the largest fruit interest in Honduras was also founded in 1899.

The population of Honduras in 2006 was 7.3 million. The country covers an area of 112,000 square kilometers. Forested land amounts to 53.6% of the total area, which means that there is a significant amount of natural resources remaining.

Rain is most frequent in the Caribbean during the months of September through to January. The driest months in the Bay Islands are April and May and are very hot with temperatures exceeding 90 F/32 C.

Honduras has 70 natural reserves which it hopes will be developed as national parks. The park system has been in existence legally since 1987. Natural reserves continue to be established on the Caribbean coast and all support and interest is most welcome. Parks in existence include La Tigra, outside Tegucigalpa, the Biosphere of the Rio Platano River, Punta Sal and Pico Bonito outside La Ceiba. These parks have visitors centres,hiking trails and camping.

Over half of the population lives by the land; coffee, bananas and shrimp are the main export crops and Honduras is the world's forth largest exporter of bananas. Cotton, once important is now far less so. Tobacco, corn, beans, rice and sugar are grown mostly for domestic use but some small quantities are sometimes exported. Timber is a major export, controversy over the development of forestry reserves has laid the future expansion of the industry open to doubt.

Honduras' Caribbean coast has a mixture of banana-exporting ports, historic towns (in particular Trujillo) beach resorts and Garifuna villages. There is Pico Bonito National Park, other wildlife refuges and the overland 'Jungle Trail' to Guatemala.