The Republic of Honduras (Spanish: República de Honduras), commonly known as Honduras, is a republic located in Central America, bordering Guatemala in the northern half and El Salvador in the southern half; Nicaragua to the south; Caribbean Sea to the east and north; To the south (west) the Gulf of Fonseca is the outlet to the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the mainland, there are also Swan Islands, Gulf Islands and other territories in the Caribbean Sea. The capital is Tegucigalpa.
In the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, when Spanish navigators discovered deep waters along the coastline, in Spanish: las honduras, fondos or profundidades, meaning deep, bottom or deep. Legend has it that when the Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus escaped from a storm on his fleet on his last (fourth) voyage to the New World in 1502, he could not help but exclaim: ¡Gracias a Dios que salimos de estas honduras! ”）。 Cape Tenen (and later the province of Tenen), Columbus and "Honduras" are believed to have been named after it.
However, legends are legends after all. In Columbus's writings and abstracts, the name "Honduras" never appears. According to Lex, it was Bartolomé de las Casas who gave the name, but Rolando Zelaya and Ferreira indicated that the first to use the name "Honduras" were probably Juan Díaz de Solis and Vicente Yáñez Pinsón, who decided to explore the place on their own in 1508. It takes its name from the long beaches on the Caribbean coast of Honduras that favor anchoring, that is, keeping ships as close to the coast as possible without running aground. Specifically, it may refer to the anchorage of the Gulf of Trujillo, while in the Spanish León dialect, "anchorage" means "fondura". Before 1580, only the open area near Cape Tannen in the east was called Honduras, while Hibueras or Higüeras referred to the west; It was not until the end of the 16th century that "Honduras" was used to refer to the whole territory. In the Ming Dynasty, the "Kunyu Wanguo Quantu" called it "Qidu wax". In the Qing Dynasty, Xu Jishe's "Yinghuan Zhiluo" called it Doulars.
Before European colonization of the Americas, the Three-Party Alliance and the Nahua of Kuskatlan, called the territory that makes up Honduras today "Solan", which means "quail land" in the Nahuatl language. Other indications are that the country may have been called "Guaymuras" and "Atenantitech." [7] Some conquerors once called this place "Nueva Extremadura".