The department of Santa Bárbara, in western Honduras, combines high mountains with the fertile valley of the Ulúa River. It was one of the seven original departments into which the first head of state of Honduras, the licentiate Dionisio de Herrera, divided the national territory on June 28, 1825, which makes it one of the oldest in the country. For 68 years, much of the present-day department of Cortés depended administratively on Santa Bárbara, until the former's creation in 1893.
Its capital, also called Santa Bárbara, is a quiet mountain city, the seat of an agricultural department known for its coffee, its sugar cane, its citrus and its basic grains. The region is drained by the Ulúa and Chamelecón rivers and holds important deposits of gold and silver that have been mined since colonial times.
Near the capital rise Cerro de la Cruz and the ruins of the old Castle of Bográn, witnesses to its 19th-century history.
During the pre-Hispanic period, the territory of Santa Bárbara was inhabited mainly by two ethnicities: the Maya-Chortí in the northwest and the Lenca in the southeast. In the Ulúa valley flourished cultures that left archaeological sites and a notable pre-Hispanic pottery tradition, famous for the polychrome vessels of the Ulúa style and for the finely carved marble vases (the 'Ulúa marbles'), luxury pieces preserved today in museums around the world.
Those objects, made between the 6th and 9th centuries, reveal a refined society connected with the Mesoamerican trade networks, on the frontier between the Maya world and the cultures of the intermediate area. The Ulúa valley was a densely populated and productive zone already before the conquest.
That indigenous heritage, added to Spanish colonization, forged the mestizo identity of the department, which preserves cultural traits of both roots.
Santa Bárbara is famous throughout Honduras for its natural-fiber craftsmanship, especially reed —a plant fiber harvested in the area— and palm, with which the communities weave hats, bags, baskets, placemats, rugs and ornaments of great finesse. This tradition, passed down from generation to generation and sustained above all by the hands of women from municipalities such as Ilama, Gualala and Ceguaca, is one of the department's hallmarks and an important source of income for many rural families.
The reed hats and articles of Santa Bárbara are recognized as one of the most representative craft products of the country and are marketed throughout the national territory and abroad, even as an emblematic tourist souvenir of Honduras.
This craft industry, humble but refined, made Santa Bárbara 'the land of hats' and is today a symbol of Honduran popular ingenuity.
The great natural treasure of the department is Montaña de Santa Bárbara National Park (PANAMOSAB), which protects the mountain of the same name, whose peak —Cerro El Marancho— is, at about 2,744 meters, the second highest in Honduras after Celaque. The park is located northwest of Lake Yojoa, about thirteen kilometers from the city of Santa Bárbara.
Its limestone (karst) massif hides caves, underground rivers, sinkholes and a cloud forest of great biodiversity, with endemic species of flora and fauna, and it is one of the most demanding and least explored mountain-tourism destinations in the country. Its forests are an important source of water for the whole region.
Ascending to its summit means crossing different ecological zones, from the humid forest to the high-altitude dwarf forest, in one of the most complete natural adventures of the Honduran west.
The mountain of Santa Bárbara dominates the western shore of Lake Yojoa, the largest natural lake in Honduras, whose setting of turquoise water, coffee plantations, wetlands and nature —shared with the neighboring departments of Cortés and Comayagua— makes this area one of the most beautiful corners of west-central Honduras, with excellent birdwatching and fishing.
The towns of the south of the department, near the lake, combine coffee farming and fishing with an incipient nature tourism. Santa Bárbara also preserves colonial towns and a quiet rural life, marked by the mountains, the rivers and the craft traditions.
Between the country's second-highest peak, the great lake, the reed craftsmanship and the heritage of the Ulúa culture, Santa Bárbara is a department of mountains and traditions, proud of its antiquity and its heritage.