The department bears the name of Lempira, the Lenca chieftain who between 1537 and 1538 led the greatest indigenous resistance against the Spanish in Honduras. From the crag of Cerquín, in these mountains, Lempira —whose name is said to mean 'Lord of the Sierra' in the Lenca language— gathered, according to the chronicles, thousands of warriors from two hundred villages and resisted for months, until falling around 1537 near Cerro de Congolón, according to tradition treacherously murdered during a negotiation.
His figure became the great national symbol of Honduras: the country's currency has been called the 'lempira' in his honor since 1931, and his exploits are commemorated every July 20, the day his death is remembered. The department, created in 1825 —one of the first in the country— under the original name of Gracias, was renamed in his honor.
This land was the heart of Lenca territory, and even today it preserves indigenous communities, guancascos, crafts and a strong identity tied to that epic of the conquest.
The departmental capital, Gracias (Gracias a Dios), is one of the oldest and most important colonial cities in Honduras. Founded by the Spanish around 1536 under the name Gracias a Dios, it had an exceptional historic role: between 1544 and 1549, Gracias was the seat of the Real Audiencia de los Confines, the crown's first high court of justice in all of Central America, with jurisdiction from Chiapas to Panama.
That status made it briefly the administrative capital of the Central American region, before the Audiencia was moved to Santiago de Guatemala under pressure from Guatemalan interests. That fleeting splendor left Gracias a historic aura that can still be felt in its cobblestone streets and its colonial heritage.
Today Gracias is one of the most charming colonial destinations in the west, a base for exploring the Ruta Lenca and a starting point toward the mountains of Celaque.
Gracias preserves a notable colonial ensemble of cobblestone streets, whitewashed adobe mansions and several old churches, among them San Sebastián, San Marcos and Las Mercedes, jewels of the religious architecture of the Honduran west. On a hill overlooking the city rises the Fort of San Cristóbal, ordered built during the administration of President Juan Lindo around 1850 to face the threats of invasion from El Salvador and Guatemala.
The fort holds the tomb of Juan Lindo himself, one of the most important statesmen of 19th-century Honduras and Central America, who governed both El Salvador and Honduras and promoted education and the founding of the university. Its bastions and cannons also offer a panoramic view of the city and the valley.
This heritage makes Gracias a living museum of the colonial and republican history of Honduras, in a setting of mountains and forests.
Next to Gracias rises Montaña de Celaque National Park, which protects the highest point in Honduras, Cerro Las Minas, at 2,870 meters. Its name means 'box of water' in the Lenca language, and rightly so: its cloud forests are a veritable water factory for the entire western region, with springs that supply dozens of communities.
Celaque is one of the best places in the country for high-altitude hiking and wildlife watching, with quetzals, pumas, deer and a lush flora of giant ferns, oak groves, firs and orchids. Ascending to its summit, among mists and dwarf forests, is one of the great mountain adventures in Honduras.
At the foot of the park, near Gracias, hot springs well up amid nature —today fitted out into forest-surrounded spas— a perfect complement to the mountain adventure.
Lempira is one of the great bastions of contemporary Lenca culture. Municipalities such as La Campa, with its colonial church and its pottery tradition, and the mountain communities preserve guancascos, confraternities, clay crafts and a religiosity that fuses the indigenous and the Catholic. High-altitude coffee, grown on the department's slopes, is another pillar of its economy alongside basic grains and cattle ranching.
Gracias, Celaque, the hot springs, the Lenca towns and the Ruta Lenca make Lempira one of the great nature and cultural tourism destinations of the Honduran west, still far from mass tourism. Each night, moreover, Gracias lights up with a particular charm that has earned it the reputation of 'the city that glows at night'.
Between the memory of the chieftain Lempira, the colonial splendor of Gracias and the majesty of Celaque, this department condenses much of the historical and natural identity of Honduras.