Belmopan, nouvelle capitale du Belize indépendant. De la colonie caribéenne à la nation centre-américaine ?

• Main Author: Elisabeth Cunin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université des Antilles 2012-04-01
• Series: Études Caribéennes
• Subjects: nation; capital; ethnicity
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/5733

In Belize, the project to build of a new capital appeared at the beginning of the 1960s, just after the tragedy of hurricane Hattie (October 1961), which destroyed a large part of the colonial capital, Belize City. Belmopan, located at the geographical center of Belize, should become the new modern face of the country, the symbol of a young nation on its way to independence (1981), the guarantee of a better territorial and demographic integrated society, the spearhead of the economic development of the country. Nevertheless, since its birth, the city has failed to expand and Belize City, on the Caribbean coast, is still the non-official capital of the country. The history of Belmopan, from its initial planning to its current growth, will give me the opportunity to question the difficult emergence of an independent nation, whose double Caribbean and Central-American belonging produces the ethnicization of the society.