With an estimated total population of 9.304 million inhabitants (48.7% men, 51.3% women) and 82.7 inhabitants per square kilometre (as of 2020), Honduras is the second most populous country in Central America. The population is growing rapidly (1.6% estimated annual growth rate as of 2020) and is projected to reach over 10.76 million inhabitants by 2030, and 13.3 million by 2050. Half of the population is 24.3 yr old or younger (as of 2020). The population includes mostly mestizo people, while indigenous people accounted for 8.6% of the population in 2013 (date of the latest population census) [4].

The spatial distribution of the population is highly uneven. The departments of Cortés and Francisco Morazán concentrate 37% of the country’s population. Home to an estimated 1.78 million people (as of 2020), Cortés is the most densely populated department in Honduras. It concentrates most of the country’s industrial activity and its departmental capital city, San Pedro Sula, is regarded as the industrial capital of Honduras. Some 1.67 million people (as of 2020) reside in the department of Francisco Morazán, the seat of the national government at the capital city, Tegucigalpa.

Honduras has been experiencing a rapid urbanisation process as a result of population growth in urban zones and rural-to-urban migration. Some 55% of the population was estimated to live in urban zones in 2020, compared to 53.4% in 2013, 46% in 2001, and 39.4% in 1988 (dates of the three latest population censuses) [4].

With an annual average GDP of $22.8 billion and average growth rate of 3.8 % during the 2015–2019 period, the Honduran economy is the third smallest in Central America, only above Nicaragua and Belize. Three sectors currently comprise the majority of Honduras’s economic activity: services, industry (mainly maquila and agro industry), and agriculture (mainly sugar cane, palm oil, banana, and coffee). The services sector accounted for 57.6% of 2019 GDP, the industrial sector contributed 27.1%, and the agriculture sector (including crops, livestock ranching, forestry, and fishing) accounted for 10.8%. Personal remittances from the Honduran diaspora (mainly in the USA) totalled over $5.4 billion in 2019, or approximately 21.7% of GDP.

With a Gross National Income per capita of only $2,380 (as of 2019), Honduras is regarded as a lower-middle income country and is one of the poorest countries in the LAC region. It ranked 132 out of 189 countries worldwide and the second lowest in the LAC region (only above Haiti) in the UNDP’s 2019 Human Development Index (0.634, medium human development). Wealth is extremely unequally distributed, with the richest 10% of the population holding 34.7% of the national income, against the 3.6% held by the poorest 20% (as of 2019). The Gini coefficient was 48.2 in 2019, among the twenty most unequal countries in the world. Thanks to the slow but steady growth of the overall economy, general poverty in the population decreased from 71.1% to 64.7%, and extreme poverty from 50.9% to 41.7%, between 2012 and 2019 countrywide, but with marked differences between urban (where general/extreme poverty were 58.5%/25.4% in 2019) and rural (where general/extreme poverty were 72.2%/61.5% in 2019) areas.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the country in March 2020; in addition to the public health crisis, it has also had profound socioeconomic impacts including massive job losses due to confinement measures, food insecurity, and declines in access to quality education and health. These impacts were further exacerbated by the extensive damages (heavy rains, floods, landslides, damage to infrastructure, crops, and households, and human losses) caused by hurricanes Eta and Iota in November 2020. Despite the government’s response and the sustained inflow of remittances, some 13% of adults are estimated to have lost employment, GDP contracted by 8.9%, and about 700,000 people are estimated to have fallen into poverty in 2020 [5], [6], [7], [8], [9].

Honduras currently has fairly decent telecommunication systems and internet services. In 2000, 67.4% of the population had access to electricity (94.4% vs. 44.8% in urban vs. rural areas), fixed telephone services had a coverage of only 4.5 subscriptions per 100 people, the penetration of cellular phone services was 2.4 subscriptions per 100 people, and only 1.2% of the population were using the internet. Access to electricity increased to 86.5% (97.8% vs. 71.8% in urban vs. rural areas), fixed telephone services increased to 5.2 subscriptions per 100 people, the penetration of cellular phone services increased to 87.3 subscriptions per every 100 people, and 32.1% of the population were using the internet by 2017 [6].

Honduras is highly exposed to climate-related hazards such as hurricanes, tropical storms, floods, droughts, and landslides that devastate crops and critical infrastructure. The national economy has been severely damaged and affected by food insecurity, poverty, and migration of Hondurans in search of security for their families.

For instance, Hurricane Mitch destroyed an estimated 70% of the country’s crops and infrastructure in 1998, caused over 10,000 deaths, affected over two million people, and left over $3 billion in damages; the energy sector alone suffered losses for 28 million due to physical damage and blackouts. Flood and storm events have had more severe impacts and the number of people affected has shown an increasing trend since 2000. Despite recurrent impacts of tropical storms and hurricanes, the country has still overall a very low adaptive capacity at national, regional, and local levels.

Intense rural-to-urban migration and the cities’ own population growth have pushed poor people in major cities and towns (e.g., Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, La Ceiba, Choloma, and Tela) to settle into hazard-prone zones that lack water management systems, resulting in frequent flooding and water scarcity. Honduras's growing population, especially in urban areas around Tegucigalpa leads to ever-greater encroachment in areas prone to landslides and flooding.

Corruption and violence are critical issues in Honduras.

Corruption has a negative impact on the country's economic development, particularly on tax collection and the quality of public spending. Economic losses from corruption are estimated at 2% of GDP per year. The country has made progress in its fight against corruption thanks to the support from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the creation of the anti-corruption commission of the National Police, and the establishment of the Support Mission Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras. Even so, the country remains among the countries with the highest perception of corruption.

For instance, the 2017 presidential elections were charged with fraud and violence, with at least 29 people killed when President Juan Orlando Hernández was re-elected in murky circumstances. Mr Hernández was even accused of having turned Honduras into a narco-state and he was implicated in a trial in the United States that found his brother guilty of drug trafficking in 2019. On November 28th 2021 Hondurans voted in a peaceful, exceptionally highly attended presidential election. The winner, Xiomara Castro, is hoped to help Honduras build a country they no longer wish to flee from, by rebuilding democracy, creating a fairer economy, and getting rid of corruption.

Violent crime is rampant in Honduras. Despite a recent downward trend, the murder rate remains among the highest in the world. The homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants improved from 86.5 to 59.0 between 2011 and 2016, thanks to increased patrols, improved response to complaints and increased investigative capacity. Although the absolute number of homicides has decreased, there has been an increase in homicides against women: homicides of women were 6% of the 2010 total, and 9% in 2016. According to ECLAC data, in 2016 Honduras was characterized by its high rates of homicides against women, 10.2 per 100,000 women, 60% of these homicides could be categorized as femicides.

Journalists, environmental activists, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals are vulnerable to violence.

Criminality poses a high cost for the country. The economic cost of violence was estimated at 6.5% of GDP in 2014. A key factor in explaining high criminality is the institutional weakness of the justice system, which hinders the effectiveness of law enforcement and crime and violence prevention. According to the 2016 World Justice Project, the country has one of the least effective criminal justice and order and security systems in the world. Efforts to reform public-security institutions have stalled. Marred by corruption and abuse, the judiciary and police remain largely ineffective. Impunity for crimes and human rights abuses is the norm.

Poverty, violence, and insecurity cause significant outflows of migrants and asylum-seekers [10], [11].