Belize Geography, Climate & Nature

Belize is a small rectangle of the Yucatán's eastern edge, 22,960 square kilometres between Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean. Its coast runs 386 kilometres and is mostly marsh and mangrove, with the cayes -- Ambergris, Caulker and hundreds smaller -- strung along the Barrier Reef that lies from a few hundred metres offshore in the north to 40 kilometres out in the south. Beyond the reef are three atolls, Turneffe, Glover's Reef and Lighthouse Reef, and near the centre of Lighthouse Reef, 70 kilometres from Belize City, the Great Blue Hole: a marine sinkhole 318 metres across and 124 deep, a cave that flooded when the sea rose.

Inland the north is a low limestone plain of rivers and lagoons, and the south and west rise into the Maya Mountains, where Doyle's Delight at 1,124 metres is the highest point. Woodland still covers about 56 per cent of the country, 1,277,050 hectares in 2020, and the limestone under it is riddled with caves -- the Maya used them as shrines, and Actun Tunichil Muknal is the one visitors wade into.

The reef is 300 kilometres of the 900-kilometre Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System that runs from Cancún to Honduras, the second-largest coral reef system in the world after Australia's; its reserve system has been a World Heritage Site since 1996.

Belize has a tropical climate with two seasons: dry from January to May and rainy from June to November. The dry months are the visiting season -- clear water on the reef, passable roads to the interior sites -- and the rainy ones bring afternoon storms rather than all-day rain, greener forest and lower prices. The climate article the site relies on gives no temperature figures, so none are repeated here; the country is hot and humid on the coast and cooler in the Maya Mountains, and the cayes have the sea breeze.

The hazards are hurricanes, mostly in the late Atlantic season from September to December, and coastal flooding, especially in the south. Hattie in October 1961 destroyed Belize City and moved the capital; Keith in 2000 hit the northern cayes. September's national celebrations fall inside the risk window, which is worth knowing when booking.

Best Destinations by Month has the practical reading.

Belize's biodiversity is a function of two facts: forest still covers about 56 per cent of the land, 1,277,050 hectares in 2020, and the country has fewer people per square kilometre than any other in Central America. The forest has been shrinking -- 1,600,030 hectares in 1990 -- but what lies inside legally protected areas has held far better than what lies outside them, which is the argument for the protected-area system the country built early: the Cockscomb Basin in 1986 as the world's first jaguar sanctuary, Hol Chan in 1987 as the first marine reserve, the Barrier Reef Reserve System as World Heritage in 1996.

At sea the reef is 300 kilometres of the second-largest coral system in the world, with three atolls beyond it and the Great Blue Hole at the centre of one; the World Heritage listing names its habitats as the reason for inscription and continuous bleaching as the threat. On land the national animal is Baird's tapir and the national bird the keel-billed toucan.

No species-level survey was consulted beyond the sources named in the data file; the figures are indicative.

The jaguar is the animal the country is known for and the one a visitor will not see: the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, declared in 1986 as the first protected area in the world for the species, is regarded as the premier site for its preservation, and what a walker meets there are tracks, scrapes and the forest that holds them. Baird's tapir, the national animal, and the keel-billed toucan, the national bird, are more obliging, the toucan especially.

Underwater is where the wildlife is guaranteed. Hol Chan, established in 1987 with fishing banned, and Shark Ray Alley, added to it in 1999, are the reef's most visited patch precisely because the nurse sharks and rays are there; the Barrier Reef beyond them and the three atolls carry the rest of the Caribbean's reef life, under the bleaching that the World Heritage listing warns about.

The caves hold bats and the archaeology; the rivers of the Cayo district hold what the old page on this site listed and its sources do not confirm, so this page says only that the river trips exist and the guides are the people who know.