English: Cloud-free skies over Central America allowed the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite to acquire a gorgeous true-color image centered on the Gulf of Honduras on January 12, 2024.

The Gulf of Honduras is a large tri-national inlet of the Caribbean Sea, with portions of the waters claimed as exclusive economic zones of Belize (north), Honduras (south), and Guatemala (west). The most notable description of the Gulf of Honduras would focus on diversity of habitat, which gives rise to a rich and diverse marine ecosystem. There are coastal mangrove forests, sea-grass beds, areas where fresh-water rivers flow into the Gulf, an extensive barrier reef system, cays, atolls, as well as the transition to oceanic waters. Water depth also varies greatly in the Gulf, from barely-sunken atolls and reef to a depth of more than 2,000 meters (6,500 feet).

The Belize Barrier Reef system stretches along 1000 kilometers (600 miles) off the coastlines of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras and is an integral part of the greater Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second longest in the world. The immense variety of types and sizes of reef found here creates excellent habitat for a wide variety of marine and bird species, making it one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.