Belize is a small Central American country on the Caribbean Sea, bordered by Mexico to the north and Guatemala to the west and south. Its geography splits into two zones: a low-lying northern and coastal plain built on limestone, and a mountainous south dominated by the Maya Mountains. Offshore, Belize protects the Belize Barrier Reef, the second-largest barrier reef system on Earth, along with hundreds of small islands called cayes.
Belize does not fit neatly into one regional box. Geographers place it in Central America, but its coastline, its cayes, and its cultural roots tie it just as strongly to the Caribbean. This dual identity is not an accident of geography — it is the result of tectonic history, ocean currents, and centuries of human movement across a coastline that has always faced two directions at once.
For students and teachers, Belize offers something rare: a country small enough to study in full detail, yet varied enough to illustrate nearly every major theme in physical and human geography. Karst landscapes, coral reefs, tropical rainforests, river systems, colonial history, and Indigenous heritage all appear within a territory smaller than the U.S. state of Massachusetts. This guide walks through each of these systems and explains how they connect, so that Belize’s geography reads as a single, coherent story rather than a list of disconnected facts.
Where Is Belize Located?
Belize sits on the eastern coast of the Central American isthmus, at roughly 17°N latitude and 88°W longitude. It borders Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula to the north, Guatemala to the west and south, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. This position places Belize at a geographic crossroads — close enough to Mexico to share limestone geology and Maya history, close enough to Guatemala to share a mountainous interior, and open enough to the Caribbean Sea to develop a maritime, reef-based economy and culture found nowhere else on the Central American mainland.
Belize covers approximately 22,970 square kilometers (8,867 square miles) of land, making it one of the smallest countries in Central America by area. Despite its size, it has the lowest population density in the region, a fact directly tied to its geography: large sections of the country are covered by dense forest, wetland, or mountain terrain that has historically limited large-scale settlement.
Why Belize’s Location Shapes Its History and Trade
A country’s neighbors matter as much as its coastline. Belize’s position between Mexico and Guatemala placed it directly in the path of Spanish colonial expansion, yet its swampy coast and barrier reef made Spanish naval access difficult. British and Scottish logwood cutters exploited this gap in the 17th century, settling areas that Spain claimed on paper but never controlled in practice. That early pattern — a colonial power based in Britain rather than Spain — is why Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language, and it is a direct result of coastal geography that favored small ships and hidden channels over large naval fleets.
Modern trade follows a similar logic. Belize City and the southern port of Big Creek handle shipments of sugar, citrus, and bananas, while overland trade routes connect Belize to Chetumal in Mexico and to Guatemala’s Petén region. Border geography also shapes migration: many Belizeans of Maya and Mestizo heritage maintain family and trade ties across the Guatemalan and Mexican borders, a pattern rooted in the fact that national boundaries here were drawn well after cultural and linguistic communities had already taken shape.
Mainland and Offshore Geography: Two Belizes in One Country
Belize’s territory divides into two distinct geographic realms: the mainland, running roughly 280 kilometers north to south along the Caribbean coast, and an offshore zone containing more than 1,060 cayes, reef systems, and three coral atolls. Understanding Belize means understanding both halves and how they interact.
The Mainland: A Country Split by Elevation
The mainland itself splits again, this time by elevation and geology. Northern and coastal Belize consists of low limestone plains rarely rising above 60 meters, formed from ancient marine sediment. Southern and central Belize rises sharply into the granite-and-limestone Maya Mountains, which reach over 1,100 meters at their highest point. This north-south, low-to-high split explains almost everything else about Belizean geography: where rivers begin, where rain falls heaviest, where farms are viable, and where cities and villages have grown.
The Offshore Zone: Cayes, Atolls, and the Reef
East of the mainland lies a shallow continental shelf studded with sand and mangrove cayes — Ambergris Caye, Caye Caulker, and Turneffe Atoll among the best known. Further offshore sit three of only four coral atolls in the Western Hemisphere: Turneffe Atoll, Lighthouse Reef, and Glover’s Reef. This offshore geography is not separate from the mainland story — it is a continuation of it. The same limestone platform that underlies northern Belize extends underwater, providing the foundation on which coral reefs have grown for thousands of years.
Physical Geography and Geological Formation
Belize’s landscape is best explained through its two dominant rock types: limestone in the north and coastal lowlands, and older igneous and metamorphic rock in the Maya Mountains of the south.
How Limestone Shaped Northern and Coastal Belize
Much of Belize sits atop the Yucatán Platform, a massive shelf of limestone laid down over millions of years as calcium carbonate from ancient marine organisms accumulated on a shallow sea floor. When this seabed was later uplifted above sea level, it created the flat, low-lying terrain that now covers most of northern and coastal Belize. Limestone is a soft, soluble rock, and rainwater — naturally slightly acidic — dissolves it slowly over time. This chemical process, not river erosion, is the primary sculptor of northern Belize’s landscape.
The Maya Mountains: Belize’s Geological Backbone
The Maya Mountains, by contrast, are built from much older granite and metamorphic rock, some of it among the oldest exposed rock in Central America. These mountains formed long before the surrounding limestone plains, acting as a resistant core around which younger sedimentary rock later accumulated. Victoria Peak, rising to 1,124 meters within the Maya Mountains, is Belize’s second-highest point and one of its most recognizable landmarks, sitting inside the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary.
This geological contrast — young, soft limestone surrounding an old, hard mountain core — is the single most important fact for understanding Belizean physical geography. Choose the limestone lowlands as your reference point if you want to understand karst landscapes, groundwater, and agriculture; choose the Maya Mountains if you want to understand rainfall patterns, river origins, and biodiversity hotspots.
Karst Landscapes, Caves, and Underground Drainage
Where limestone meets rainfall, karst topography follows. Belize is one of the best places in the world to study this process firsthand.
What Is Karst, and Why Does Belize Have So Much of It?
Karst is a landscape shaped by the dissolution of soluble rock, typically limestone. As slightly acidic rainwater seeps into cracks in the rock, it slowly widens them into channels, sinkholes, and caves. Over thousands of years, this process can hollow out entire underground drainage systems, leaving the surface pocked with depressions and sinkholes while rivers vanish underground and reappear miles away.
Belize’s karst is extensive because its limestone base is thick, old, and located in a tropical climate where heavy rainfall accelerates the dissolution process. The result is a landscape riddled with over 500 recorded caves, many of which were used by the ancient Maya for ceremonial purposes.
Caves as Cultural and Geological Sites
The Actun Tunichil Muknal cave system and the Great Blue Hole — technically a giant marine sinkhole rather than a cave — are Belize’s most famous karst features. The Great Blue Hole, located within Lighthouse Reef Atoll, formed as a limestone cave system during a past ice age when sea levels were much lower. As sea levels rose after the last glacial period, the cave roof collapsed, leaving a nearly perfectly circular sinkhole over 300 meters across and 124 meters deep. This single feature illustrates how karst geology and rising sea levels together shaped Belize’s coastline over thousands of years.
Choose karst-based caves for cultural geography lessons, since many contain Maya artifacts and ceremonial remains; choose the Great Blue Hole for physical geography lessons, since it demonstrates sea-level change and limestone collapse in a single, visually striking landform.
Mountains, Highlands, and the Maya Mountains
The Maya Mountains dominate the geography of southern and central Belize, and their influence extends far beyond their own footprint.
How the Maya Mountains Control Rainfall and River Flow
Mountains force air upward, and rising air cools and releases moisture. Because the Maya Mountains sit directly in the path of moist trade winds coming off the Caribbean Sea, they trigger some of the heaviest rainfall in Belize — southern districts near the mountains, such as Toledo, receive over 4,000 millimeters of rain annually, compared to under 1,500 millimeters in parts of the drier north. This rainfall pattern, driven entirely by elevation, is the reason southern Belize supports dense rainforest while the north supports drier savanna and scrubland.
The mountains are also the source of nearly every major river in the country. Rainfall collects on granite slopes too hard to absorb much water, runs off quickly, and feeds the headwaters of rivers such as the Macal, Raspaculo, and Monkey River, all of which flow outward from the highland core toward the coastal plain.
Human Settlement and the Maya Mountains
Steep terrain, thin soils, and heavy rainfall have historically discouraged large-scale settlement directly within the Maya Mountains. Instead, population centers have concentrated on the surrounding foothills and river valleys, where water is abundant but slopes are manageable enough for farming. San Ignacio, in the Cayo District, is a clear example: it sits along the Macal River at the edge of the highlands, benefiting from mountain-fed water without confronting the steepest terrain directly.
Rivers and Water Systems
Belize’s rivers connect its mountainous interior to its coastal plain, carrying water, sediment, and history along the way.
Major Rivers and Their Geographic Role
The Belize River is the country’s longest and most historically significant waterway, running roughly 290 kilometers from the Guatemalan border to the Caribbean Sea near Belize City. Before modern roads existed, the Belize River served as the primary transportation route for moving mahogany and logwood from the interior to coastal ports — a pattern that shaped where early colonial settlements were built.
Other major rivers include the Hondo River, forming part of the border with Mexico, and the Sarstoon River, forming part of the border with Guatemala in the far south. Because rivers here often double as international boundaries, they carry political as well as physical significance.
Rivers, Sediment, and the Coastal Plain
As rivers slow down while crossing the flat northern and coastal plains, they drop the sediment they picked up in the highlands. Over thousands of years, this process has built up much of the fertile lowland soil used for agriculture today. Rivers also feed freshwater into coastal lagoons and wetlands, creating the brackish conditions that mangrove forests depend on.
Plains, Wetlands, and the Coastline
Belize’s coastal geography is defined by flat terrain, poor drainage, and an enormous amount of wetland habitat.
The Coastal Plain: Flat, Low, and Water-Logged
The coastal plain running along most of Belize’s Caribbean edge sits at or barely above sea level. Poor natural drainage across this flat limestone terrain means water tends to pool rather than run off quickly, creating extensive marshes, swamps, and lagoons, particularly around the mouths of major rivers.
Wetlands and Mangroves as Coastal Protection
Mangrove forests line much of the Belizean coast and cayes, thriving in the brackish water where rivers meet the sea. These forests do more than provide habitat — their tangled root systems trap sediment, stabilize shorelines, and absorb wave energy during storms. Choose mangrove-lined coastline for storm-resistant development, and expect erosion problems where mangroves have been cleared for construction, a pattern already visible around parts of Ambergris Caye and Belize City’s outskirts.
The Belizean Coastline and Its Relationship to the Reef
Belize’s coastline runs for roughly 386 kilometers, but its geography is defined as much by what lies offshore as by the shore itself. The Belize Barrier Reef parallels the coast at a distance ranging from a few kilometers to over 40 kilometers, creating a calm, shallow lagoon between the mainland and the open Caribbean Sea. This lagoon has historically sheltered small boats and fishing vessels from rough ocean swells, making coastal trade and fishing far more viable than they would be along an exposed, reef-free coastline.
The Belize Barrier Reef and Marine Geography
No feature defines Belize’s international reputation more than its barrier reef system.
What Makes the Belize Barrier Reef Significant?
The Belize Barrier Reef stretches approximately 300 kilometers along the coast, forming the largest reef system in the Northern Hemisphere and the second-largest barrier reef system in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. UNESCO designated the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System a World Heritage Site in 1996, recognizing its exceptional biodiversity and its role as a living laboratory for coral reef ecology.
How the Reef and Cayes Formed Together
The reef and the cayes that dot Belize’s coastal waters share the same origin story as the mainland’s limestone: shallow, warm tropical seas allowing coral polyps and other marine organisms to build calcium carbonate structures over thousands of years. As sea levels rose and fell throughout past ice ages, coral growth kept pace with rising water in most areas, forming the layered reef structure seen today. Sand and coral debris accumulated on top of these underwater platforms, eventually breaking the surface as cayes.
Marine Geography and Coastal Communities
Communities on Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker depend directly on this marine geography for both fishing and tourism. The reef’s shallow lagoon supports lobster, conch, and finfish populations that sustain Belize’s fishing industry, while its clear water and coral formations attract the divers and snorkelers who make tourism one of the country’s largest economic sectors. Choose reef-adjacent tourism development if the goal is diving and snorkeling revenue, but weigh this against reef sensitivity to pollution and boat traffic — unregulated coastal construction has already caused localized reef damage near heavily developed cayes.
Climate and Weather Patterns
Belize has a tropical climate, but rainfall and temperature vary meaningfully across its small territory.
Tropical Wet and Dry Seasons
Belize experiences a wet season from roughly June through November and a drier season from December through May, a pattern driven by the seasonal shift of trade winds and the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Average temperatures remain warm year-round, typically between 24°C and 27°C (75°F to 81°F), with the coast staying slightly cooler than inland areas due to sea breezes.
Regional Rainfall Differences
As established earlier, the Maya Mountains create a strong rainfall gradient across the country. Northern districts such as Corozal receive far less annual rainfall than southern districts such as Toledo, which sits in the direct path of moisture-laden trade winds meeting the mountains. This difference has direct agricultural consequences: northern Belize supports sugarcane, which tolerates drier conditions, while the wetter south is better suited to crops like cacao and bananas that need consistent rainfall.
Hurricanes and Belize’s Exposure to Storms
Belize’s position on the Caribbean Sea places it directly in the path of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June through November. Hurricane Hattie in 1961 caused such severe damage to Belize City that the government relocated the national capital inland to Belmopan, a decision made explicitly because of the coastal capital’s vulnerability to storm surge. This history illustrates a direct, causal link between physical geography — a low-lying, storm-exposed coastline — and a major human geography outcome: the location of a national capital.
Ecosystems and Biodiversity
Belize’s rainfall gradient, elevation range, and marine geography together produce an unusually wide range of ecosystems for such a small country.
Terrestrial Ecosystems: From Rainforest to Savanna
Southern Belize’s high rainfall and mountainous terrain support dense broadleaf rainforest, home to jaguars, tapirs, and hundreds of bird species. Northern Belize, with lower rainfall and flatter terrain, supports pine savanna and scrub forest instead. This split is not random — it follows the same rainfall gradient created by the Maya Mountains discussed earlier, demonstrating how a single geographic feature can determine which ecosystems develop across an entire country.
Marine and Coastal Ecosystems
Offshore, the Belize Barrier Reef supports over 500 species of fish along with sea turtles, manatees, and one of the largest populations of whale sharks in the Caribbean, particularly near Gladden Spit during the spring spawning season. Mangrove forests along the coast serve as nurseries for many of these same fish species, meaning that damage to coastal mangroves can directly reduce fish populations on the reef itself — a clear example of how terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Belize are physically linked rather than separate systems.
Protected Areas and Conservation Status
Belize protects roughly 36% of its land and marine territory in national parks, reserves, and sanctuaries, one of the highest proportions of protected land of any country in the world. The Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, home to Victoria Peak, holds the distinction of being the world’s first jaguar reserve.
Population and Human Geography
Belize’s low population density and settlement patterns are best explained by returning to the physical geography already discussed.
Where Belizeans Live, and Why
With a population of roughly 400,000 people spread across nearly 23,000 square kilometers, Belize has one of the lowest population densities in Central America. Most Belizeans live in the northern and coastal lowlands, where flat terrain and accessible water support agriculture and trade, rather than in the mountainous south, where steep terrain and thin soils make large-scale settlement difficult. Belize City, the country’s largest urban center, grew at the mouth of the Belize River precisely because that location combined coastal shipping access with river transport into the interior.
Ethnic and Cultural Diversity
Belize’s population includes Mestizo, Creole, Maya, Garifuna, Mennonite, and East Indian communities, among others, making it one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Central America. This diversity traces directly back to Belize’s geographic role as a colonial borderland: British loggers, enslaved Africans brought to work the timber trade, Maya communities predating colonization, Garifuna settlers arriving by sea in the late 18th century, and later Mennonite farmers were all drawn to or displaced into this particular stretch of coastline for reasons tied to its resources and its position between larger colonial powers.
Maya Heritage and Cultural Geography
Long before European contact, Belize sat at the heart of Maya civilization, and its geography still shows the marks of that history.
Maya Settlement Patterns and the Landscape
Ancient Maya cities such as Caracol, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains, and Lamanai, along the New River Lagoon, were built in locations chosen for reliable water access, defensible terrain, or fertile agricultural land — the same geographic priorities that shape settlement patterns everywhere. Caracol, one of the largest Maya sites in the region, supported a population estimated in the tens of thousands, sustained partly by an extensive system of agricultural terraces built into the surrounding hills to manage water and soil on sloped terrain.
Karst Geography and Maya Ceremonial Life
The Maya viewed caves as sacred entrances to the underworld, and Belize’s extensive karst cave systems, including Actun Tunichil Muknal, contain pottery, skeletal remains, and ceremonial artifacts left by Maya priests centuries ago. This connection between geology and belief is a clear example of how physical geography shapes not just where people live, but how they interpret the world around them.
Maya Communities Today
An estimated 10% of Belize’s population identifies as Maya today, concentrated primarily in the Toledo District in southern Belize, where Mopan and Q’eqchi’ Maya communities continue traditional farming practices adapted to the region’s high rainfall and mountainous terrain.
History and Government
Belize’s political history is inseparable from its geographic position between British colonial interests and Spanish-claimed territory.
From British Honduras to Independent Belize
Britain formally established the colony of British Honduras in 1862, though British logging settlements had operated in the area since the 17th century, protected in part by the difficulty Spanish ships faced navigating the barrier reef. Belize gained full independence from Britain in 1981, becoming the last country in mainland Central America to do so — a delay driven largely by a long-standing territorial dispute with Guatemala, which claimed parts of Belizean territory and, in modified form, continues to contest the border today.
Government Structure
Belize operates as a parliamentary democracy within the Commonwealth, with the British monarch as ceremonial head of state represented by a Governor-General. The national capital, Belmopan, was purpose-built inland in the Cayo District following Hurricane Hattie’s destruction of coastal Belize City in 1961, a direct example of natural hazard exposure reshaping a country’s political geography.
Economy, Agriculture, and Fisheries
Belize’s economy reflects its geography closely, built around the resources that its land and sea can realistically support.
Agriculture Shaped by Climate and Soil
Sugarcane dominates agriculture in the drier north, particularly in the Corozal and Orange Walk districts, while citrus and bananas thrive in the wetter south and central regions where rainfall is more reliable. Cacao production, tied historically to Maya agricultural traditions, has grown in Toledo District in recent decades, often through smaller-scale farming cooperatives.
Fisheries and the Reef Economy
Belize’s fishing industry centers on lobster, conch, and finfish harvested from the shallow lagoon protected by the barrier reef. Fishing cooperatives, some dating back to the 1960s, manage much of this trade and have played a role in promoting sustainable harvest limits designed to protect reef fish populations from overfishing.
Tourism as a Reef-Dependent Industry
Tourism has grown into one of Belize’s largest economic sectors, driven overwhelmingly by the barrier reef, cayes, and Maya archaeological sites. Choose reef- and reef-adjacent tourism as the primary growth strategy if long-term reef health can be maintained, since the industry depends entirely on the ecosystem staying intact; tourism revenue drops sharply wherever reef damage or water pollution becomes visible to visitors, which is why conservation and economic policy in Belize are closely linked rather than separate concerns.
Transportation, Infrastructure, and Energy
Belize’s terrain has historically limited large-scale infrastructure development, and this pattern continues today.
Roads, Rivers, and Isolation
Belize’s mountainous south and dense forest interior have made road construction difficult and expensive, leaving some rural communities in Toledo and Cayo Districts more isolated than coastal areas. Rivers, once the primary transportation corridors during the colonial logging era, have largely been replaced by road networks, though smaller communities along waterways still rely on boat travel where roads remain unpaved or seasonally flooded.
Energy Resources
Belize generates a significant share of its electricity from hydropower, drawing on rivers fed by the Maya Mountains, supplemented by imported electricity from Mexico and a smaller amount of biomass energy generated from sugarcane byproducts. Solar energy development has increased in recent years, particularly suited to Belize’s consistently high levels of tropical sunlight.
Environmental Challenges, Natural Hazards, and Climate Change
Belize’s geography creates real vulnerabilities alongside its natural advantages.
Hurricanes and Storm Risk
As discussed earlier, Belize’s coastal exposure to Atlantic hurricanes represents its most significant natural hazard, with historical storms like Hurricane Hattie (1961) and more recent storms causing major damage to coastal infrastructure and agriculture.
Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Vulnerability
Belize’s low-lying coastal plain and cayes sit only slightly above sea level, making them particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise driven by global climate change. Rising seas threaten to accelerate coastal erosion, increase saltwater intrusion into freshwater wetlands, and place low-elevation communities on cayes such as Caye Caulker at growing risk of flooding.
Reef Health Under Threat
Coral bleaching, driven by rising ocean temperatures, has affected sections of the Belize Barrier Reef in recent decades, alongside localized damage from pollution, unsustainable coastal development, and boat traffic. This is not a guarantee of continued decline — Belize has taken meaningful conservation steps, including a moratorium on offshore oil drilling near the reef, enacted specifically to protect this World Heritage Site.
Deforestation Pressures
Agricultural expansion and logging continue to place pressure on Belize’s forested interior, particularly in areas surrounding protected zones. Because forest cover directly affects river flow, soil stability, and rainfall patterns, deforestation in the Maya Mountains carries consequences that extend well beyond the immediate area being cleared.
Conservation and Sustainable Development
Belize has positioned itself as a regional leader in conservation policy, a choice closely tied to how dependent its economy is on healthy ecosystems.
Protected Land and Marine Areas
With more than a third of its territory under some form of protection, Belize has built one of the most extensive conservation networks in Central America. This scale of protection reflects a practical reality as much as an environmental ideal: reef tourism, fisheries, and agriculture all depend on the ecosystems being protected, making conservation an economic strategy as well as an environmental one.
Balancing Growth and Preservation
Belize continues to face pressure to expand tourism infrastructure, agriculture, and coastal development, often in direct tension with conservation goals. Choose carefully regulated, small-scale development near sensitive reef and mangrove areas if the goal is long-term sustainability; unrestricted large-scale coastal construction has already caused measurable ecological damage in parts of Ambergris Caye, a pattern conservation policy is now attempting to prevent from spreading further.
Understanding Belize as a Connected System
Belize rewards close study precisely because its geography is not a random assortment of features — it is a chain of cause and effect. Ancient limestone deposits created the karst landscapes and caves of the north. A hard granite core resisted erosion long enough to become the Maya Mountains, which now force rainfall to fall unevenly across the country, shaping everything from rainforest distribution to crop choice. That same limestone platform extends offshore, providing the foundation for the Belize Barrier Reef, which in turn shelters the coastline, supports the fishing and tourism economies, and shaped centuries of colonial and Maya history alike.
For students and teachers, the clearest way to study Belize is to keep tracing these connections rather than memorizing facts in isolation. Ask how one feature caused another. Ask why a mountain range determines a country’s rainfall, or why a hurricane can move a national capital. Belize’s small size makes it possible to hold the entire system in view at once — a rare opportunity in physical and human geography alike.
Frequently Asked Questions About Belize’s Geography
Is Belize part of Central America or the Caribbean?
Belize is geographically and politically part of Central America, sharing land borders with Mexico and Guatemala. However, its Caribbean coastline, extensive reef system, and cultural ties to Caribbean nations mean it is often grouped with the Caribbean region as well, making it one of the few countries considered part of both regions.
What is the highest point in Belize?
Doyle’s Delight, at 1,124 meters, is Belize’s highest point, located within the Maya Mountains. Victoria Peak, also within the Maya Mountains and long mistakenly listed as the highest point, remains the country’s best-known peak and sits inside the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary.
Why does Belize have so many caves and sinkholes?
Belize’s northern and coastal regions sit on thick limestone deposits, a soft rock that dissolves gradually when exposed to slightly acidic rainwater. Over thousands of years, this process, called karstification, has carved out more than 500 recorded caves and produced dramatic sinkholes such as the Great Blue Hole.
How big is the Belize Barrier Reef?
The Belize Barrier Reef extends roughly 300 kilometers along the coast, making it the largest reef system in the Northern Hemisphere and the second-largest barrier reef in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. UNESCO recognized it as a World Heritage Site in 1996.
What is Belize’s climate like?
Belize has a tropical climate with a wet season from June through November and a drier season from December through May. Rainfall varies significantly across the country, with southern districts near the Maya Mountains receiving over 4,000 millimeters annually, compared to under 1,500 millimeters in the drier north.
How does climate change threaten Belize?
Belize faces two major climate-related risks: sea-level rise threatening its low-lying coastal plain and cayes, and rising ocean temperatures causing coral bleaching on the Belize Barrier Reef. Both risks directly threaten the tourism and fishing industries that much of Belize’s economy depends on.