Honduras Departments

Honduras is about the size of Ohio and sits between Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua with a long Caribbean coast and a few miles of Pacific on the Gulf of Fonseca. The department is the unit that settles a round there, because it tells you whether you are on the north coast, in the western highlands or out in the forest of the east before it tells you anything else.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: Part of the country: north coast, west, centre, east and south
In the game: 18 departments

Start

What you are looking at

The departments (departamentos) of Honduras, the first tier of the country. The capital, Tegucigalpa, sits in Francisco Morazán, and San Pedro Sula, the industrial city, in Cortés, so those two are the first answers most people learn.

The map is lopsided. Olancho is the biggest department and Gracias a Dios, the Mosquitia, fills the whole north east corner, while the western highlands pack Copán, Ocotepeque, Lempira, Intibucá and Santa Bárbara into a space smaller than either. The Bay Islands, Roatán, Utila and Guanaja, are one department drawn as a scatter of islands off the north coast, so they have a tap area wider than their outline.

Honduras has no official grouping above its departments, so the groups are the five parts of the country it is usually described in, with the Bay Islands counted among the north coast. They are a way to drill the map a piece at a time, not an official classification. The departments are the Honduras Municipalities grouped, so the borders of the two maps match exactly.

How to place one

Start with the Mosquitia. Gracias a Dios is the big one in the north east corner, on the Nicaraguan border, and nothing else on the map is like it.
Find the capital. Francisco Morazán is in the middle of the country, with Comayagua to its north west and El Paraíso to its east.
Read the south as a pair. Choluteca and Valle are the two departments that reach the Gulf of Fonseca.
Follow the north coast. Cortés, Atlántida, Colón and Gracias a Dios run in order along the Caribbean from Guatemala to the Mosquitia.

Every department, by part of the country

West5 departments: Copán, Intibucá, Lempira, Ocotepeque, Santa Bárbara
North Coast5 departments: Atlántida, Bay Islands, Colón, Cortés, Yoro
Centre3 departments: Comayagua, Francisco Morazán, La Paz
East3 departments: El Paraíso, Gracias a Dios, Olancho
South2 departments: Choluteca, Valle

Worked examples

Olancho

The biggest of them

Olancho is the largest department in Honduras, a cattle and forest country in the east that reaches from the capital's doorstep to the edge of the Mosquitia.

Bay Islands

The one that is in the sea

The Bay Islands are the only department with no mainland: Roatán, Utila and Guanaja, off the north coast. They are drawn where they lie, and the tap area lets you reach them.

Francisco Morazán

The one with the capital

Francisco Morazán holds Tegucigalpa, in the Central District. The department and its capital share a name only in the sense that people say Tegucigalpa for both, so the department is the answer to look for.