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Belize (/ b ɪ ˈ l iː z, b ɛ-/ ⓘ, bih-LEEZ, beh-; Belize Kriol English: Bileez) is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast.
The traditional story of the English settlement of Belize is the most commonly given account in scholarly literature, though historians often qualify it, given the lack of primary sources. [ citation needed ] [ note 7 ] A variety of competing accounts have been proffered since the 18th century, none of which have gained widespread scholarly favour.
In the late classic period, it is estimated that between 400,000 and 1,000,000 people inhabited the area that is now Belize. [5] [2] People settled almost every part of the country worth cultivating, as well as the cay and coastal swamp regions. But in the 10th century, Maya society suffered a severe breakdown.
British Honduras was a Crown colony on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony, renamed Belize in June 1973, [2] until September 1981, when it gained full independence as Belize.
The Pre-Columbian Belize history is the period from initial indigenous presence, across millennia, to the first contacts with Europeans - the Pre-Columbian or before Columbus period - that occurred on the region of the Yucatán Peninsula that is present day Belize. Belize's history begins with the Palaeoindians.
The indigenous people of Belize did not resist the British like they did the Spanish. In the 17th century, however, the British settlement became a formal British crown colony from 1862 through 1964, where they first achieved self government and later in 1981 became an independent country recognized globally with all its territory intact.
The periodisation of the history of Belize is the division of Belizean, Maya, and Mesoamerican history into named blocks of time, spanning the arrival of Palaeoindians to the present time. The pre-Columbian era is most often periodised by Mayanists , who often employ four or five periods to discuss history prior to the arrival of Spaniards .
The first Baymen settled in the Belize City area in the 1630s. They were buccaneers and pirates trying to outrun the Spanish rulers in Mexico and Central America. They found that they could make a living cutting and selling logwood to the home country. Many of the first Baymen settled on what is now the Northside of Belize City. They controlled ...