Belize is a small country that lies directly south of Mexico. Bordering Guatemala to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east it is 180 miles long and no more than 68 miles wide. With a population of less than 350,000, it excels in being a country rich in diversity.

The peoples of Belize include Maya, Creole, Mestizo, Garifuna, Mennonite, East Indian and Chinese. The Maya are the oldest residents of the area that now forms Belize with a history dating back some 3,500 years. There are estimated to be approximately 900 Mayan ruins scattered throughout the country.

The first English settlers of the coast were shipwrecked sailors in the 17th Century. They were joined, in early days, by pirates who subsequently became log cutters. The people known today as the Garifuna are the descendants of Africans and Carib Indians who made their way to the east coast of Central America and then northward to what is now Belize in the 1800’s. The Mennonites are recent immigrants having arrived in the 1950’s.

The British made the area the Crown Colony of British Honduras in 1862. The country became a self-governing colony in 1964, its name was changed to Belize in June, 1973 and it gained full independence on September 21, 1981.

Belize is blessed with the second longest barrier reef in the world which is less than a mile off Ambergris Caye in the north of the country and more than twenty miles off its southern coast line. It is also blessed with some of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. These natural aquatic attractions as well as Mayan ruins, cave systems, world-class fishing and diving, mountains and jungles boasting the world’s only Jaguar preserve, draw more than a million visitors a year.

On the Placencia Peninsula lie three settlements: Placencia at it’s southern tip, the Garifuna town of Seine Bight approximately 5 miles north, and the community of Maya Beach another 4 miles further on. It is this peninsula that boasts the finest sandy beaches in the country. Click here to visit the official website of Placencia!