Omoa

Omoa is a town and a municipality in the Department of Cortés of the Central American country of Honduras. Omoa is located on a small bay of the same name 18 km. west of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean Sea coast.

Geography

Omoa is both a municipality and a small town located along the Northwest Caribbean coast of Honduras. The town is about 18 km west of Puerto Cortes. The municipio of Omoa is populated by about 30,000 people distributed within an area of 382.8 km².

History

In 1536 Omoa was a small "pueblo de indios" allocated in repartimiento by Pedro de Alvarado to Luis del Puerto along with the nearby Indian town of Chachaguala. But by 1582 Omoa had ceased to exist as a viable community.

Repeated pirate raids on coastal towns along the Caribbean coast of Central America led the Spanish Crown as early as 1590 to begin looking for a new defensible port for the Captaincy General of Guatemala to export its goods to Spain. This initial study by Antonelli, and many subsequent ones, all pointed to the bay at Omoa as the most defensible location along the coast west of Trujillo (which already had a fort).