What is the capital of Belize?

Belmopan exists because a hurricane destroyed the old capital. Belize City sits barely above sea level on the coast and was devastated by Hurricane Hattie in 1961, the latest in a series of storms and floods to hit it. Rather than rebuild the government in the same exposed spot, the colonial administration decided to establish a new capital roughly eighty kilometres inland on higher ground beside the Belize River, and the move was completed in 1970. The new city was planned on a modest scale, its main public buildings loosely echoing Maya architecture, and it was designed for a population it took a long time to attract, so it remained very small for years after the ministries arrived. Belize City kept the port, the airport connections and most of the commercial and social life of the country, and it is still by far the larger of the two.

Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language, a legacy of British colonial rule.