Overview of Punta Gorda

Punta Gorda, aka PG, is the capital town of the Toledo District, the southernmost district in Belize. With a population of about 6,000 people, PG is comprised of diversity of ethnicities – 31% Garinagu, 24% Maya, 19% Mestizo, 15% Creole, 9% East Indian, and others including Chinese, Mennonites, and Americans. Its inhabitants are mostly English-speaking although the native languages spoken are Garifuna, Kekchi, Mopan Maya, Kriol and Spanish. Nestled along the Caribbean coast, the town boast of its unique easy going friendly community lifestyle. A flight by one of the daily airline into PG will reveal the town’s lush green surrounding forests and hills, and the wide expanse of the sea speckled with several cayes.
The mainstay of the local economy of PG is subsistence agriculture, small trading businesses, fishing, and a small increase in the tourism sector. The government, education and NGO sectors are also significnt providers of employment in PG.

PG was first settled by a number of Garifuna immigrants who came from Honduras in 1823 (some also from the village of Punta Gorda in Roatan Honduras, which is one of the earliest settlements of Garinagu in Central America after the British deported them from St. Vincent in 1797.)
In 1866, after the US Civil War, some Confederate veterans received land grants from the British government and founded a settlement near Forest Home three miles from Punta Gorda. There these veterans established a sugar and rum industry and imported East Indian laborers to work on their plantations. This industry later collapsed and many of the confederates returned to the U.S., but East Indian settlements in that area continued to thrive.

Punta Gorda serves as main hub of transportation for tourists traveling to or from Guatemala to other parts of Belize. There is a small airport which serves domestic flights from Maya Island Air and Tropic Air. James Bus Line is serviced from in Punta Gorda and travels regularly to Independence, Dangriga, Belmopan, and Belize City. Boats ferry passengers to Livingston or Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, on a daily basis.

Facts about PG Town:

Declared a town 21 January 1894 but it existed long before it was officially declared. No exact date is documented about the settlement of PG. But by the 1830s, there were reports that PG was already populated by a number of Garifuna families.

The PG Rice Mill was one of the biggest rice mills in the country

Until the early1960s, the streets were lit by kerosene lanterns that were hoisted up on lamp posts. These lanterns were lit every evening.

Before there was a highway to Belize City in the 1960s, people from PG used to travel to Belize City and other parts of the country by boat. The name of the boats were Honduran, Heron H and Maya Prince. It often took near 18 hours to reach Belize City by boat, as these would stop along several points, e.g. Monkey River Town, Big Creek, Placencia and Dangriga to load and unload cargo.

Currently Punta Gorda Town has the only mixed town council (of both UDP and PUP members) in the country.

From around the 1970s to early 1990, PG served as small base for the British Army who were stationed here for defence against potential aggression by Guatemala.

There are two marine reserves off the coast of PG: Port Honduras Marine Reserve and the Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve.

The first high school to be established Punta Gorda was St. Peter Claver College which opened its doors in the early 1960s and have graduated a number of prominent citizens who serve all over Belize.

Toledo Community College was opened in 1982 as an amalgamation of a proposed technical college with Claver College.

St. Peter Claver School, the largest school in PG was founded in the late 1870s.

There are several organizations in Punta Gorda. These include: Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE), YCT (Ya axche Conservation Trust), Julilan Cho Society (JCS), Toledo Organization for Children and Adolescents (TOLCA), Toledo Development Corporation (TDC), Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM), and the Red Cross.