The divisions of the city are linked by four bridges: the Swing Bridge, at Market Square and North Front Street the Belchina Bascule Bridge at the Douglas Jones Street and Youth for the Future Drive junction the Belcan Bridge linking Central American Boulevard and the roundabout leading to the Northern Highway and Caribbean Shores, and a recently built fourth bridge linking Fabers' Road and the southern Lake Independence/Port Loyola area to the Belama and northwest suburbs of the city. The Swing Bridge in Belize City is the only functioning, manually operated swing bridge in the world. Albert contains the downtown streets of Albert and Regent Streets.īridges and other infrastructure On the east side of Central American Boulevard are Mesopotamia, Queen's Square and Albert, which are slightly better. "London bridges", rickety wooden pallets linking dwellings, and low-strung poles are not uncommon here. On the Southside, Lake Independence, Collet and Port Loyola are home to some of the city's poorest residents. John's is the only Anglican cathedral in the world outside England where the crowning of kings took place.įort George is perhaps the most colonial area in the city and contains Memorial Park, the Baron Bliss Grave and Baron Bliss Lighthouse and the Museum of Belize. Construction began in 1812, and the church was completed in 1820. The orange bricks came to Belize aboard British ships as ballast. John's is the oldest Anglican Church in Central America, and one of the oldest buildings in Belize. John's Cathedral stands on the southern end of Albert Street. Pickstock inhabits the banks of the Haulover Creek extending to Barrack Road. Within the city proper it extends up to around the former Belize Technical College area.Ĭaribbean Shores includes Kings' Park, a small suburb north and west of Freetown Road, West Landivar, home to two of the University of Belize's three city campuses, and residential University Heights. The city is also susceptible to flooding in the rainy season.įreetown, the westernmost constituency on Northside, is home to the Belama, Coral Grove, Buttonwood Bay and Vista Del Mar suburbs. Fires on the Northside and Southside have burnt out great stretches of housing, but the fire department was able to quench most of these. The city was also hit hard by Hurricane Richard in 2010 and by the 2016 Hurricane Earl. Natural disasters īelize City has been directly struck by two hurricanes since 1900, the 1931 hurricane and the 1961 Hurricane Hattie, and at various times areas of the city have burnt down, the most recent being fires in the 19. Even though people like Antonio Soberanis, George Price and Evan X Hyde all lobbied to take their movements outside, and other ethnic groups such as the Garifuna and Mestizos sprang up elsewhere in the country, people looked to Belize Town for guidance. For this reason, historians often say that "the capital was the colony", because the center of British control was here. George's Caye, won by the British against would-be invaders, and the home of the local courts and government officials up to the 1970s. It was the coordination site for the 1798 Battle of St.
Belize Town also became the home of the thousands of African slaves brought in by the English ( later the British, beginning in 1707) to toil in the forest industry.
Belize Town was ideal for the English as a central post because it was on the sea and a natural outlet for local rivers and creeks down which the British shipped logwood and mahogany. It had been a small Maya city called Holzuz. Belize City was founded as "Belize Town" in 1638 by English lumber harvesters.