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BELIZE: FACTS & FIGURES
Area: 23,000 sq. Km. About the size and
shape of New Hampshire (2 million people) or El Salvador (5 million
people.)
Population: Officially 250,000. This
doesn't count 50-100,000 illegal aliens.
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40% Mestizo. Mostly descended from refugees of
the Caste War in the Yucatan, but supplanted by recent immigrants from
Guatemala, Honduras & El Salvador. Spanish is their first language, but
most speak some English.
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33% Creole. These are Caribbean Creoles, a
mix of Europeans with carib or indigenous
people. They speak Kriol, an abbreviated form of English much like
'pidgin'.
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10% Maya. The indigenous people of
Belize. They speak Mayan as well as Spanish and English.
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7% Garifuna. (Pronounced Ga-RIFF-U-na)
A black Carib people who settled the islands on the southern coast of
British Honduras. They are facile with languages, and many are
teachers in the U.S. and Belize. Their music is Punta, drum-oriented,
multipart vocal.
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6000 Mennonites began emigrating from Mexico to
Belize in 1958. They have large land holdings, supply virtually all of
the dairy products and chicken for the country. They visibly cling to
the old ways, driving buggies and wearing suspenders or long skirts.
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Chinese, mostly from Taiwan, use Belize as a place
to learn English. They are shopkeepers and bakers, industrious and
close-knit.
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Expatriates from Canada, Britain and the United
States represent less than 10% of the population.
Government: Belize was
formerly British Honduras, and its parliamentary government is patterned after
the British model. As a member of the Commonwealth, Belize recognizes
Queen Elizabeth as the titular head of state, represented by a Governor General
who is politically neutral. There is an elected House of Representatives
and an appointed Senate. The Prime Minister, head of the majority party,
is the chief executive of the country. The judiciary is an independent
branch of government.
Electricity: Belize
Electric is a recently privatized monopoly. 110 Volt 60hz power is about
16 cents a kwh (about double the US rate) [See the Footnote
here, for the current rates.]
Water: The water is
generally potable, but may be heavily chlorinated. Bottled water is
available everywhere at nominal cost, and we recommend its use!
Addresses
(E-mail & snail-mail)
Need More? Click
here to see the CIA casebook on
Belize. However, BEWARE! It's very
outdated, and it exaggerates everything bad about Belize. For instance,
they talk about "incredibly dangerous hurricanes" -- and of course,
North Carolina is the hurricane capital of the south Atlantic and nobody makes a
big deal about it. [See our Hurricane Pages here.]
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