Place:Islas de la Bahía, Honduras

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Islas de la Bahía ("Bay Islands") is one of the 18 departments into which the Central American nation of Honduras is divided. The departmental capital is Roatan, on the island of Roatán.

The department covers a total surface area of 261 km² and, in 2005, had an estimated population of 43,018 people. It comprises three geographically separate groups:

1. Islas de la Bahía (with the main islands Roatán, Guanaja and Útila, and numerous satellite islands)
2. Cayos Cochinos, further south
3. Swan Islands, 120 km to the north

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The Bay Islands were first discovered by Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage to America in 1502. They were later claimed, and successively held, by Great Britain, Spain, and the Dutch United Provinces. England finally took control in 1643 and, with the exception of a one-month period of Spanish dominance in 1780, held onto them as a Crown colony, dependent on Jamaica. In 1860, in the aftermath of the William Walker filibustering affair, the British crown recognized Honduran sovereignty and ceded possession of them. The department of Islas de la Bahía was officially incorporated into the nation on 14 March 1913.

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