Countries
Key facts
- Capital
- Belmopan
- Region
- Americas, Central America
- Population
- 422,924 (2025)
- Area
- 22,966 km²
- Currency
- Belize dollar (BZD)
- Languages
- English, Spanish
- Calling code
- +501
- Internet domain
- .bz
- ISO codes
- BZ, BLZ, 084
- Time zone
- UTC-6:00
- United Nations
- Member state
Land and position
Belize covers about 22,966 square kilometres. By area it ranks 153rd among the 250 countries and territories on this site. It is a little smaller than Djibouti and a little larger than El Salvador. It shares a land border with 2 neighbours: Guatemala, Mexico. Its centre lies at about 17° north, 89° west, in the northern hemisphere.
Neighbours
People
About 422,924 people live in Belize (World Bank, 2025). That makes it the 178th most populous of the 246 places on this site with a figure. On average there are 18 people to each square kilometre. About 42 percent of people live in towns and cities (World Bank, 2025). A baby born there can expect to live about 74 years (World Bank, 2024). Languages listed for it: English, Spanish. A person from Belize is called Belizean.
Money and economy
The currency is the Belize dollar (code BZD, symbol $). The World Bank puts the size of its economy (GDP) at about US$ 3.33 billion (2025), which is about US$ 7,865 for each person (2025).
Time
Belize uses one time zone, UTC-6:00 (America/Belize). Clocks stay the same all year: there is no daylight saving time.
Time now: loading
Offsets are for January 2026. See Time Zones for a converter.
Largest cities
| City | People |
|---|---|
| Belize City | 65,222 |
| San Ignacio | 21,229 |
| San Pedro | 17,429 |
| Orange Walk | 15,298 |
| Belmopan | 13,381 |
City figures are from GeoNames and count the city itself, not the wider urban area. They can be some years old, so use them to see the order of size.
More in Central America
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama. See the whole region.
Figures were collected on 11 November 2026 from the World Bank, GeoNames and the open countries data set. See About and data sources. Borders and names follow those sources and do not express any view on disputed territory.