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Colón Department (Honduras)

department of Honduras

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ867117 ↗
Source-derived summary

Colón is one of the 18 departments into which Honduras is divided. It was created in 1881. The departmental capital is Trujillo, and the other main city is Tocoa. Trujillo was the site of the first Catholic mass on the American mainland, held when Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón) reached the Honduran shore in 1502.

Colón harbors a substantial Garifuna population and has pristine beaches and rainforested national parks. The Fort of Santa Barbara, built by the Spaniards in the colonial era, was the site of the execution of US filibuster William Walker in Trujillo, and his remains are buried in the city's graveyard.

The department covers a total surface area of 8,875 km2 and, in 2007, had an estimated population of 284,900 people.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Colón Department (Honduras)” is department of Honduras. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Colón, Department and Honduras, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1881, 1502, 2007—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1881-12-19. For this dossier, Colón, Department and Honduras is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “department of Honduras” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q867117. VIAF identifies the subject as 153598768. Authority coordinates are 15.918, -85.953. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1502 and 2007.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Colón Department (Honduras)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Colón Department (Honduras) primary sources, Colón Department (Honduras) archive and Colón research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Colón Department (Honduras)”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Colón Department (Honduras)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.