Demographics ofHonduras
Population pyramid of Honduras in 2020
Population	9,459,440 (2022 est.)
Growth rate	1.19% (2022 est.)
Birth rate	17.92 births/1,000 population (2022 est.)
Death rate	4.68 deaths/1,000 population (2022 est.)
Life expectancy	75.17 years
• male	71.63 years
• female	78.82 years
Fertility rate	2.01 children born/woman (2022 est.)
Infant mortality rate	15.08 deaths/1,000 live births
Net migration rate	-1.34 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2022 est.)
Age structure
0–14 years	30.90%
15–64 years	63.20%
65 and over	5.90%
Sex ratio
Total	0.95 male(s)/female (2022 est.)
At birth	1.03 male(s)/female
Under 15	1.03 male(s)/female
65 and over	0.71 male(s)/female
Nationality
Nationality	Honduran
Major ethnic	Multiracial (82.93%)[1]
Minor ethnic	Whites [es] (7.87%) Indigenous (7.25%) Lencas (5.46%) Miskitos (0.96%) Chʼortiʼ (0.40%) Others (0.43%) Blacks (1.39%) Other groups (0.55%)
Language
Official	Spanish
Spoken	Languages of Honduras

This article is about theethnic groups and population ofHonduras.

According to the 2022 revision of theWorld Population Prospects^[3][4] the total population was 10,278,345 in 2021, compared to 1,487,000 in 1950 (a fivefold increase in 60 years). The proportion of the population aged below 15 in 2010 was 36.8%, 58.9% were aged between 15 and 65 years of age, and 4.3% were aged 65 years or older.^[5]

As of 2014, 60% of Hondurans live below the poverty line.^[6] More than 30% of the population is divided between the lower middle and upper middle class, less than 10% are wealthy or belong to the higher social class (most live inTegucigalpa andSan Pedro Sula).

Registration of vital events is in Honduras not complete. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.^[5]

Births and deaths^[7][10]

^[11]

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR):^[12]

The Amerindian population is the largest minority group in Honduras. The largest Amerindian group are the Lencan people. These people have been living in Honduran territory since before thecolonization of the Americas, developing their own societies and civilizations. They still have many communities across the country. The indigenous population would begin to decline from the mid-16th century, mainly due to the various diseases brought by the Europeans in addition to the growing mestizo population after the founding of towns and cities. According to the 2001 census theAmerindian population in Honduras included 381,495 people (6.3% of the total population).^[13] With the exception of the Lenca and the Ch'orti' they still keep their language.

Six differentAmerindian groups were counted at the 2001 census:

• theLenca (279,507 in 2001;4.6% of the total population) living in the La Paz, Intibucá, and Lempira departments;
• theMiskito (51,607 in 2001; 0.8%) living on the northeast coast along the border withNicaragua.
• theCh'orti' (34,453 in 2001;0.6% of the total population), a Mayan group living in the northwest on the border with Guatemala;
• theTolupan (also called Jicaque, "Xicaque", or Tol; 9,617 in 2001; 0.2% of the total population), living in the reserve of the Montaña de la Flor and parts of the department of Yoro;
• thePech or Paya Indians (3,848 in 2001; 0.1% of the total population) living in a small area in the Olancho department;
• theMayangna or Tawahka (2,463 in 2001; <0.1%)

Examples of Honduran natives are the many Mayan rules of Copan and other Mayan cities, native chiefs such asLempira and Cicumba, and environmental and feminist activistBerta Cáceres.

• 
  Copan founder, king Knich Yax Kuk Moo
• 
  Mayan ruler, Kʼakʼ Yipyaj Chan Kʼawiil
• 
  Lencan ruler, Lempira
• 
  Lencan environmental activist, Berta Cáceres

Mestizos (meaning mixed European and Amerindian) have been reported by theCIA World Factbook to be about 87% of the population of Honduras.^[14] As in other Latin American countries, the question of racial breakdown of a national population is contentious. Since the beginning of the 20th century at least, Honduras has publicly framed itself as a mestizo nation, along with other Latin American countries such asGuatemala or Mexico, ignoring and at times disparaging both the European component of the population and the surviving Amerindian population that was still regarded as "pure blooded". It's well known that many Hondurans of European or almost entirely Amerindian background consider themselves mestizo.^[15][16]

Because of social stigmas attached, many Honduran people denied having African ancestry, and after African descended Caribbean workers arrived in Honduras, an active campaign to denigrate all people of African descent, made persons of mixed race anxious to deny any African ancestry. Hence official statistics quite uniformly under-represent those people who have ancestry in favor of a "two race" solution.^[15]

Agenetic admixture study focusing on kidney disease in Hispanic populations in theUnited States found an average genetic mix of 40% European, 39% Indigenous, and 21% African ancestry in theHonduran-American diaspora population, from a sample of 295 US residents who reported all four grandparents born in Honduras.^[17]

Examples of Honduran mestizos are, PoetClementina Suarez, novelist and poetRoberto Sosa, footballerNoel Valladares and former presidentManuel Zelaya.

• 
  Jose Trinidad Reyes, Founder of the National University
• 
  Writer and poet, Rigoberto Paredes.
• 
  Novelist, Roberto Sosa
• 
  Footballer,Noél Valladares

The Afro-Honduran population consist of people ofAfro-Descendants with roots in colonial Honduras,Garifuna,Miskito, andCreoles. Most of them are descendants of African people brought by the Spanish and other European colonizers between the 16th and 18th centuries. Many of them came from the west African coast, from places likeAngola orSenegambia, where European bought slaves for their colonies, while others came from the other colonies in theCaribbean.

According to some reports around 230,000 enslaved Africans arrived to Honduras during colonial times, directly from Africa and other colonies in the Americas.[2][3]

Scholars andprivate universities claim ranges from 20-30% of the Honduran population being Afro-descendants due to many Black Hondurans or Afro-descendants, Mulattos, Afro-Indigenous and people with significant African descent identifying as Mestizo due to oppression from society and the government and Mestizaje, wide-spread mixing amongst other things.[4][5]

• TheMiskito are an Afro-indigenous ethnic group in Central America, of whom many are mixed race. In the northern end of their territory, the people are primarily ofAfrican-Native American ancestry; others are of mixed African-Native American and English descent. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande de Matagalpa, Nicaragua, along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone.^[18][6]
• The Garifuna are descendants ofCarib,Arawak, and WestAfrican people. This ethnic group has its origins in a group from St. Vincent islands in the Caribbean, who came in 1797. At the 2001 census 46,448 people were registered as Garifuna, 0.8% of the total population of Honduras.^[13] The Garifuna speak anArawakan language. They live along the entire Caribbean coastline of Honduras, and in the Bay Islands.
• The Creole people are descendants of Afro-Caribbean people who arrived originally with the introduction of enslaved Africans brought by the British to Honduras in the 16th and 17th century. Creoles also arrived with the immigration of black workers from Jamaica, Cayman Island,Trinidad and Tobago and other English-speaking islands, who arrived in the early twentieth century to work in transnational banana companies, workers in the construction of railways, dockworkers and in some cases "scabs", are concentrated mainly in theBay Islands, especially theRoatan Island andGuanaja and Caribbean coastal Honduran cities likePuerto Cortes,Tela andLa Ceiba. In the 1800s, five years before independence, the Mayor Don Juan Antonio Tomos issued a report of his visit in 1815, in which he indicated 100,000 inhabitants in the cities ofPuerto Cortés, San Pedro Sula, Tela, La Ceiba, and 39 curatos and 8 villages of Caribbean blacks from countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Belize, and Haiti. Plus additional inhabitants near Trujillo (estimate does at 10,000) for a total of 110,000 inhabitants. After independence" the population of 1826 (200,000 people) is based on the calculation made by Mr.Dionisio de Herrera, former head of the state of Honduras. By the early 1900s more 300,000 people had came to Honduras to work mainly in the booming banana cultivation and other agricultural sectors.^[19][7][8]

Examples of well-known Afro-Hondurans are footballersDavid Suazo,Victor "Muma" Bernardez, Dr. Emet Cherefant, andWilson Palacios.

• 
  Footballer, David Suazo
• 
  Footballer, Wilson Palacios

Honduras of European descent or White Hondurans, along with Afro-descendants and Amerindians belong to the minorities of Honduras. Most of the white population are descendants of the Spanish settlers, who mainly came from southern Spain, and inhabit most of the western part of the country. Other populations include descendants of European immigrants who arrived at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2014, there were about 14,000Hondurans of Italian descent, while there were around 400 Italian citizens.^[20] Percentages of whites varied between 2.1% and 7%,^[21] due to the fact that the majority ofHondurans identify themselves asmestizos, regardless of their ethnic and racial category.^[22] This makes it more difficult to study the number of people who fit into the white category in Honduras.

The census states that only 89,000 people in Honduras labeled themselves as white, which is equal to around 1% of the total population at the time.^[23] Another study has stated that around 210,000 people in Honduras fit this category, which would make the Honduran white population to be around 2.1%.^{[citation needed]}

However, other studies report that the percentage could rise much more, reaching close to a half a million white people inHonduras, which according to official national sources would make a percentage of between 5% and 6.9% of whites in Hondurans.^[24] This is because the majority of whites in Honduras do not identify themselves as Euro-descendants as such, adopting and feeling more identified with the mestizo identity.^[25]

Examples of white Hondurans are ex-presidentSimon Azcona del Hoyo, pharmacologistSalvador Moncada, film director Juan Carlos Fanconi, politicianRoberto Micheletti, GeneralFlorencio Xatruch and former president of theCentral American federation DonFrancisco Morazán Quezada.

• 
  Central American president, General Francisco Morazán
• 
  General, Florencio Xatruch
• 
  Ex-President, Francisco Bertrand
• 
  Sir. Salvador Moncada, Honduran pharmacologist
• 
  Juan Carlos Fanconi, film director
• 
  Ex president, José Simón Azcona del Hoyo

There is a smallChinese community in Honduras. A lawyer of theCommittee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) stated that the Chinese community in Honduras is rather small. Many of the Chinese are immigrants who arrived from China after the revolution and their descendants.^[26]

• 
  Hajime Waki, Honduran-Japanese singer.

Honduras hosts a significantPalestinian community (the vast majority of whom areChristian Arabs).^[27] These Arab-Hondurans are sometimes called "Turcos", because they arrived in Honduras using Turkish travel documents, as their homeland was then under the control of theOttoman Empire. The Palestinians arrived in the country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, establishing themselves especially in the city of San Pedro Sula.^[28] As mentioned earlier, they are also considered whites in the country's censuses, in total the Arab-Hondurans make up 3% of the Honduran population.

• 
  Businessman Miguel Facusse, son of immigrants from the Ottoman Empire
• 
  Vice PresidentSalvador Nasralla, son of Palestinian immigrants
• 
  Dr Kerim Gattas Asfura, of Arab descent
• 
  Carlos Flores Facussé, first Honduran president of Palestinian descent

Spanish immigration to Honduras [es] during the colonial era was the main source of the country's current white and mestizo population. It was later followed by African immigration, first brought over as slaves and later as free people of color.

Immigrants in Honduras[29]
Country	Immigrants
United States	21,000+
El Salvador	9,000+
Nicaragua	8,000+
China	7,000+
Cuba	5,000+
Guatemala	4,000+
Mexico	2,000+
Colombia	1,000+
Costa Rica	1,000+
Spain	1,000+

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