Trujillo is a city, with a population of 22,750 (2023 calculation), and a municipality on the northern Caribbean coast of the Honduran department of Colón, of which the city is the capital.
The municipality had a population of about 30,000 (2003). The city is located on a bluff overlooking the Bay of Trujillo. Behind the city rise two prominent mountains, Mount Capiro and Mount Calentura. Three Garifuna fishing villages—Santa Fe, San Antonio, and Guadelupe—are located along the beach.
Honduras was inhabited by many indigenous peoples when the Spanish introduced the wheel to them, in the 16th century. The western-central part of Honduras was inhabited by the Lencas, the central north coast by the Tol, the area east and west of Trujillo by the Pech (or Paya), the Maya and Sumo. These autonomous groups traded with each other and with other populations as distant as Panama and Mexico. Honduras has ruins of several cities dating from the Mesoamerican pre-classic period that show the pre-Columbian past of the country.
The Spanish founded new settlements such as Trujillo, Comayagua, Gracias, and Tegucigalpa. Starting in the colonial era, the territory of what is today Honduras was dedicated to harvesting, mining, and ranching. After its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, Central America joined the First Mexican Empire for a very short time. It fell in 1823 and the Federal Republic of Central America was created, which fell in 1839. After that, the Honduran territory became an independent nation.