Tegucigalpa, a few tidbits

I looked this all up, some my investigation, some from legit websites, however, I am not putting this all out there as all totally confirmed.  Mostly just for fun and to wrap our collective minds around a few things of Tegucigalpa.

Item #1 So why is land so expensive in Tegucigalpa, when it is in an economically poor country?

Tegucigalpa is roughly 7 miles from East to West, and five miles North to South.  It is hard to tell exactly, as it is a city crammed into a valley, rapidly working its way up the sides of the valley and spilling out of the bowl if you will, but close enough for blog work.  Total square miles despite my above measurements, taking in the not square nature (and consulting another website)...roughly 50.

Population...1.1-1.3 million or so (expected to double in the next 15 years or so?  Yikes)

Now, since I am from Indiana, and it is easy to compare, let us take a city like Indianapolis.

If we look at just inside the loop of 465, it measures about 13 miles East to West and 16 miles North to South but to make it easier, let us take the whole Marion county, which is roughly 20 miles by 20 miles, or 400 square miles.

Marion county as a whole has a population of about 900,000.

So, population 1/3 more here...but in 1/8 of the space.

This is where I would say "you do the math"...but I just did.

Item #2   Average wage in Tegucigalpa is 75% higher than the rest of the country ($440 per month as of 2010 according to the Honduras National Statistics Institute)  Try finding an accurate representative figure of the unemployment here...it is nearly impossible, with figures varying wildly from under 5% (laughable in my opinion) to high figures over 30 or 40%.  Even the CIA factbook lists that about 1/3 are underemployed.

Item #3   Coming off item #2...seeing that 30% of people living in the capital live in "moderate poverty" and 18% live in "extreme poverty" (the first...good luck deciphering into real numbers, the second is living on $1.25 or less a day) sheds light on the disparity of incomes throughout the city.

Item #4    95 cars/trucks per 1000 habitants (this is country wide...could not find for just Tegucigalpa, which would be much higher, up to possibly 400)  (USA as a total has 809 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants)

Item #5   2nd Indiana reference:  In a straight line Tegucigalpa is closer to Indianapolis than is Los Angeles California.

Item #6   3rd Indiana reference:  We have mentioned we are pretty much due South of Indianapolis.  The Mission House sits at W 87 degrees 14 minutes, which puts us pretty close.  We are West of Indianapolis...but still East of Terre Haute.

Item #7   As of 2013, there were a total of roughly 29,000 foreigners living in Honduras, out of a total population of roughly nine million (or .3%) making them a rare thing.  Consider that the neighboring countries around and rest of Latin America represent half that or so.  So overall, your odds of running into a white person (from North America or Europe) are about 1 in 1000 and an Asian from anywhere in Asia...are even more remote, like one in every 10,000.

Item #8  There are something like 17 La Colonia grocery stores in Tegucigalpa now (I can remember when there were just two) and in Indianapolis, there are at least 25 Kroger stores.

What is the point?  No point, no hidden agenda...just sharing just a few things that come up often talking to people.  Hope you enjoyed it!