La Campa is a municipality and an '' aldea'', or small town, in the Honduran Department of Lempira, located about by dirt road from

Gracias Gracias () is a small Honduran town/municipality that was founded in 1536, and is the capital of Lempira Department. The municipality has a population of 57,182 and the town a population of 16,680 (2020 calculation). It is located in the moun ...

, the largest town in the immediate region. The inhabitants of Gracias, La Campa, and other nearby aldeas, including San Manuel Colohete, are mainly of

Lenca The Lenca or Lepawiran "people of the jaguar" are from present day southwest Honduras and eastern El Salvador in Central America. They once spoke many Dialects such as Chilanga, Putun, Kotik etc. Although there were different dialects, they un ...

descent. Although the aldea is small, there are multiple smaller and spread out satellite communities in the hills above La Campa, such as Cruz Alta. These communities grow coffee to consume and sell; substance crops of rice, mango, a dozen varieties of bananas, and black beans; and run their own public elementary schools and churches. The town is known as a centre of Lenca

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

production, of which there are two main styles; there are black and white (smoked) pots and red-glazed pots. La Campa's are of the latter style. Much of the pottery sold in La Campa is brought down from the hillside villages, where the villagers are adept pottery makers. The town also has a large 18th-century Spanish church. La Campa sits in a deep river valley near Montaña Celaque ( Cerro Las Minas), the tallest mountain in Honduras.

History

La Campa in 1582 was a small town with 20 tributaries to encomendero Mario Cana. It was previously known as "Tecauxinas", back in 1887 it was a village of

. It became a municipality in 1921. The name of "La Campa" has its origins in an expression used by old miners, it had to do with searching protection against the rain.

Geography

It is located on a hillside and it is guarded by a line of solid rock hills covered with pine forests. The weather is cool and temperate most of the year.

Boundaries

Its boundaries are: *North :

and Belén municipalities. *South : San Andrés and Santa Cruz. *East : Belén municipality and Intibuca department. *West : San Manuel Colohete and San Sebastián municipalities. The municipal boundaries cover some in land area.

Resources

La Campa is not on a good elevation for coffee plantations. It balances that great flat surfaces proper for sowing vegetables. An enormous advantage it has consists of numerous fresh water springs, most emanating from within Celaque National Park.

Population

Half of the people in La Campa have cross-breed traits and the other half are descendants of native Indians. These last are especially seen in the surrounding villages. In 2001 the population of La Campa municipality was 4,238. The National Intitue of Statistics projected a population increase to reach in excess of 5 thousand inhabitants by 2008. The La Campa municipality contains 5 designated villages, and 49 other named settlements.

Demographics

At the time of the 2013 Honduras census, La Campa municipality had a population of 6,515. Of these, 80.45% were

Indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

(80.25%

), 18.25% Mestizo, 0.95% Black or Afro-Honduran and 0.35%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

.Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), bases de datos en línea
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Tourism

There are many visits to this place organised by some hotels in

. It is part of "Colosuca" trail and its well preserved church is one of the attractions. "San Matias" day is a local holiday and festival period, running from 15 to 28 February.

References

{{Reflist Municipalities of the Lempira Department