Size Matters (and so do other things)

Did you know that Honduras is roughly the size of Virginia, at just over 43,000 square miles? My department, Ocotepeque, is about equal in size to Rhode Island, at just over a thousand square miles.

The population of just under eight million of all of Honduras is also about the same as the population of Virginia, and a little smaller than all five boroughs of NYC. Ocotepeque has around 120,000 people, making it almost five times smaller than the least populated state of Wyoming. In fact, Oco has about the same number of people as Elizabeth, New Jersey (or double the amount of people as Bayonne or half the population of Jersey City).

Honduras’ population density is about 166 people per square mile, making it fall somewhere in between Georgia and Indiana (or about 1/7 of New Jersey, which of course is #1 in the US). The population density of my department is almost the same, falling in between North Carolina and Virginia, with around 190 people per square mile.

Virtually all Hondurans speak Spanish; to around 95% of the country, Spanish is their first and primary language. In the US, somewhere between 10-15% of the country speaks better Spanish than English. This means that the Spanish-speaking population of the US is more than five times as large as the entire population of Honduras. In NJ, over 15% of the population speaks Spanish. There are more Spanish-speakers in California than there are people in Honduras.

Final (not so) fun fact: The Honduran GDP per capita is $1,122. That of the US is $46,381. Both of those numbers were updated in April of this year.

Just some food for thought!