Seven isthmian states between Mexico and Colombia
Central America is the narrow bridge of land between Mexico and Colombia, usually counted as seven countries from Guatemala and Belize to Panama. It took shape over 3 million years ago, when the Isthmus of Panama joined the continents, and several active geological faults still run beneath it today.
The region straddles two cultural zones: Mesoamerica, covering Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and western Honduras and Nicaragua, where the Maya built many cities, and the Isthmo-Colombian area of Panama, Costa Rica and the eastern lowlands, where Chibchan languages dominated. Spanish-speakers treat the Americas as one continent, and people in the former federation separate América Central, the geographic region, from Centroamérica, their shared history.
Spanish colonisation began in 1502. Pedro de Alvarado arrived at Soconusco in 1523 and subdued Maya kingdoms such as the K'iche' and Kaqchikel, largely completing the conquest of Guatemala by 1528. From 1543 most of the region answered to the Audiencia of Guatemala, seated at Antigua Guatemala, which excluded Belize and Panama. Enslaved Africans were brought in to mine in Honduras and Nicaragua, cut timber in Belize and work sugar and indigo plantations, and slavery ended in 1824.
A revolt that began in San Salvador in 1811 weakened Spanish rule, and on 15 September 1821 the Act of Independence of Central America was signed. The provinces joined Iturbide's Mexican Empire, then left in 1823 to form the Federal Republic of Central America, whose constitution of 1824 borrowed from the United States model.
The federation broke apart as Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua became separate states in 1838 and El Salvador in 1841; those five still keep a shared Central American identity. Panama followed in 1903. Britain declared British Honduras a colony in 1862 over Guatemalan objections, and it became independent as Belize in 1981.
Source: Central America
