Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering the United States and the Gulf of Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually defined as consisting of eight countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Panama. Within Central America is the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from southern Mexico to southeastern Panama. Due to the presence of several active geologic faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc, there is a high amount of seismic activity in the region, such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, which has resulted in death, injury, and property damage.
Central America is commonly said to include Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. This definition matches modern political borders. Central America begins geographically in Mexico, at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico's narrowest point, and the former country of Yucatán (1841–1848) was part of Central America. At the other end, before its independence in 1903 Panama was part of South America, as it was a Department of Colombia. At times Belize, a British colony until 1981, where English instead of Spanish is spoken, and where the population is primarily of African origin, has been considered not part of (Spanish-speaking) Central America.
The Federal Republic of Central America, initially known as the United Provinces of Central America, was a sovereign state in Central America which existed from 1823 to 1839/1841. The Federal Republic of Central America was composed of five states: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, as well as a Federal District from 1835 to 1839. Guatemala City was the federal republic's capital city until 1834, when the seat of the federal government was relocated to San Salvador. The Federal Republic of Central America was bordered to the north by Mexico, to the south by Gran Colombia, and on its eastern coastline by the Mosquito Coast and British Honduras.
The Greater Republic of Central America, later the United States of Central America, originally planned to be known as the Republic of Central America, was a short-lived political union between El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, lasting from 1896 to 1898. It was an attempt to revive the failed Federal Republic of Central America that existed earlier in the century.
The Central American Bank for Economic Integration - CABEI was founded in 1960. It is an international multilateral development financial institution. Its resources are invested in projects that foster development to reduce poverty and inequality; strengthen regional integration and the competitive insertion of its member countries in the global economy; providing special attention to environmental sustainability. Its headquarters are in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) and has regional offices in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
Alberto Fuentes Mohr was a Guatemalan economist and politician, one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party. He also served as Minister of Finance and foreign minister during the 1960s.
Central America is a subregion of the Americas formed by six Latin American countries and one (officially) Anglo-American country, Belize. As an isthmus it connects South America with the remainder of mainland North America, and comprises the following countries : Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.
The Central American Integration System has been the economic and political organization of Central American states since 1 February 1993. On 13 December 1991, the ODECA countries signed the Protocol of Tegucigalpa, extending earlier cooperation for regional peace, political freedom, democracy and economic development. SICA's General Secretariat is in El Salvador.
The 2011 Copa Centroamericana was the eleventh edition of Copa Centroamericana, an international football championship for national teams affiliated with the Central American Football Union (UNCAF) of the CONCACAF region. It took place in Panama from January 14 to January 23, 2011. It was the second time for Panama to host the tournament. On January 23, 2011 Honduras won the cup by defeating Costa Rica 2-1 in the final. The top five teams from this tournament qualified for the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup. The group stage draw was conducted on September 2, 2010 in Panama City.
The Central America-4 passport is a common-design passport issued by the Central America-4 Border Control Agreement member states. Although the design had been in use by Nicaragua and El Salvador since the mid-1990s, it became the norm for the CA-4 in January 2006. The main features are the navy blue cover with the words "Centroamérica" and a map of Central America, with the territory of the issuing country highlighted in gold. Costa Rica, not a C-4 Agreement member, also uses a passport with the inscription "América Central", retained from the Federal Republic of Central America and included in its coat of arms.
The nations of El Salvador and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1838. Both nations are members of the Association of Caribbean States, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.
Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez is a Salvadoran politician and businessman who has been the 81st president of El Salvador since 1 June 2019. As a member of the Nuevas Ideas political party, Bukele is the first Salvadoran president since 1989 who was not elected as a candidate of one of the country's two major political parties: the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) and the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), of which Bukele had previously been a member. He is the first Salvadoran president to be re-elected since 1944.
The economy of Central America is the eleventh-largest economy in Latin America, behind Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. According to the World Bank, the nominal GDP of Central America reached 204 billion US dollar in 2010, as recovery from the crisis of 2009, where gross domestic product (GDP) suffered a decline to 3.8%. The major economic sectors are agriculture and tourism, although the industrial sector has shown strong growth, mainly in Panama.
Nuevas Ideas is the ruling political party of El Salvador. The party was founded on 25 October 2017 by Nayib Bukele, the then-mayor of San Salvador, and was registered by the Supreme Electoral Court on 21 August 2018. The party's current president is Xavier Zablah Bukele, a cousin of Bukele who has served since March 2020.
The following lists events that happened during 2020 in Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
Barrios' War of Reunification, also known as Barrios' great attempt, was a war initiated by Guatemalan President Justo Rufino Barrios in 1885 with the goal of reunifying Central America. Of the five Central American countries, only Honduras supported Barrios' reunification effort; Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua opposed it, as did Mexico.
The following lists events that happened during 2021 in Central America.
Opinion polling has been conducted in El Salvador since September 2019, three months after President Nayib Bukele took office on 1 June 2019, to gauge public opinion of Bukele and his government. Despite negative reception from outside of El Salvador, domestically, Bukele is considered to be one of the most popular presidents in Salvadoran history as his approval ratings generally hover around 90 percent.
The following lists events that happened during 2022 in Central America.
Central America was a unified nation at several points throughout its history, and while united, the country has used several national flags. The design of the Central American flag, a blue and white horizontal triband, was inspired by the flag of Argentina.
