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Honduras Hydrography
Honduras is a water-rich country. The most important
river in
Honduras is the Ulúa, which flows 400 kilometers to the
Caribbean
through the economically important Valle de Sula. Numerous
other
rivers drain the interior highlands and empty north into
the
Caribbean. These other rivers are important, not as
transportation
routes, but because of the broad fertile valleys they have
produced.
Rivers also define about half of Honduras's
international
borders. The Río Goascorán, flowing to the Golfo de
Fonseca, and
the Río Lempa define part of the border between El
Salvador and
Honduras. The Río Coco marks about half of the border
between
Nicaragua and Honduras.
Despite an abundance of rivers, large bodies of water
are rare.
Lago de Yojoa, located in the west-central part of the
country, is
the sole natural lake in Honduras. This lake is twenty-two
kilometers long and at its widest point measures fourteen
kilometers. Several large, brackish lagoons open onto the
Caribbean
in northeast Honduras. These shallow bodies of water allow
limited
transportation to points along the coast.
Data as of December 1993
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