San Juan, Intibucá lies in the western highlands of

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

between

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 61,421 and the town a population of 18,550 (2023 calculation). It is located in the moun ...

and La Esperanza. It is located in the department of Intibucá, was founded in 1747 by the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, and has a population of around 1000. San Juan lies in the center of the "Lenca Trail" which runs from Santa Rosa de Copan to

Marcala Marcala is a town, with a population of 15,050 (2023 calculation), and a municipality in the Honduran department of La Paz. The region is known for its coffee production, boasting the first "protected origin denomination" for coffee. Marcala has ...

La Paz La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Aymara language, Aymara: Chuqi Yapu ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With 755,732 residents as of 2024, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities by populati ...

. There are still many

Lenca The Lenca,are an Indigenous people from present day southwest Honduras and eastern El Salvador in Central America. They historically spoke various dialects of the Lencan languages such as Chilanga, Putun (Potón), and Kotik, but today are nat ...

groups in the areas surrounding the village center. There is an old

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

built by the

in the town's center next to a massive ceibo tree. The primary source of income for community members comes from the numerous coffee farms that can be found throughout the region. The main coffee cooperatives are FUNDECASA producing Rainforest Alliance Coffee and COARENE producing

Fairtrade A fair trade certification is a product certification within the market-based movement of fair trade. The most widely used fair trade certification is FLO International's, the International Fairtrade Certification Mark, used in Europe, Africa ...

and organic coffee.

Ecotourism Ecotourism is a form of nature-oriented tourism intended to contribute to the Ecological conservation, conservation of the natural environment, generally defined as being minimally impactful, and including providing both contributions to conserv ...

is also becoming popular in and around San Juan - a thermal spring outside of San Juan has been developed for tourist use. The Opalaca Biological Reserve is located in the area and a number of creeks flow through the valley. Due to the attractions in the area, a community group of leaders have established the first Rural Tourism Cooperative in the country, offering packages for tourists wanting to see "the Real Honduras". This is a rural community with natural attractions such as waterfalls, cloud forests, and canyons. The cooperative consists of a group of guides, comedores (cafeterias), guest house owners, horse owners, site owners, and a visitor center. Guided tours are offered on horseback and community members have also been trained to give coffee roasting demonstrations, local artisan workshops, and sugar cane production demonstrations. There are buses leaving Gracias and La Esperanza on a daily basis for San Juan. There are Moto-taxis transporting tourists and locals around the village. Some tourists prefer to hitchhike between the towns, which is the standard mode or transportation in the region.

Demographics

At the time of the 2013 Honduras census, San Juan municipality had a population of 13,405. Of these, 66.78% were

Mestizo ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturall ...

, 27.00% Indigenous (24.67%

, 2.30% Chʼortiʼ) 4.61%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 1.58% Black or Afro-Honduran and 0.03% others.Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), bases de datos en línea
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References

Municipalities of the Intibucá Department Populated places established in 1747 {{Honduras-geo-stub