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Belize City

Largest city in Belize

  • 7 min read
  • 10 chapters
Photo montage of Belize City Belize
Pgbk1987 · CC BY 3.0

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History

Belize City was founded as "Belize Town" in 1638 by English lumber harvesters. It had been a small Maya settlement called Holzuz. Belize Town was ideal for the English as a central post because it was on the sea and a natural outlet for local rivers and creeks down which the British shipped logwood and mahogany. Belize Town also became the home of the thousands of African slaves brought in by the English (later the British, beginning in 1707) to toil in the forestry industry. It was the coordination site for the 1798 Battle of St. George's Caye, won by the British against would-be invaders, and the home of the local courts and government officials up to the 1970s. For this reason, historians often say that "the capital was the colony", because the center of British control was here.

In the 20th-century, the British Empire's influence was studied by the Belize City House of Culture and Downtown Rejuvenation Project which revealed the colonial etymology. "Orange Street" was directly named after the Orange Order, an Ulster-Scots Protestant fraternity originating in Loughgall, County Armagh.

This sentiment remains true today. Even though people like Antonio Soberanis Gómez, George Price and Evan X Hyde all lobbied to take their movements outside, and other ethnic groups such as the Garifuna and Mestizos sprang up elsewhere in the country, people looked to Belize Town for guidance.

Natural disasters

Belize City has been directly struck by two hurricanes since 1900, the 1931 hurricane and the 1961 Hurricane Hattie, and at various times areas of the city have burnt down, the most recent being fires in 1999 and 2004. The city was also hit hard by Hurricane Richard in 2010 and by the 2016 Hurricane Earl. Fires on the Northside and Southside have burnt out great stretches of housing, but the fire department was able to quench most of these. The city is also susceptible to flooding in the rainy season.

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