Santa Rosa de Copán is the departmental capital of the Honduran department of Copán. It is approximately above mean sea level. Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, is the largest and most important city in western Honduras with a population of 42,803. Santa Rosa is the governmental hub of the department of Copán. The city is connected through the International Highway of the West with San Pedro Sula to the North and with the borders of El Salvador at El Poy and Guatemala at Agua Caliente to the west. Santa Rosa has a subtropical climate with temperatures ranging from to in the summer, and from to in the winter. The historical centre of Santa Rosa de Copán has been declared a Honduran national monument, with preservation of its Republican or Neoclassical architecture and cobblestone streets that has its origins in a prosperous tobacco farming industry of the 18th century. Santa Rosa is situated at a strategic point between Copán Ruinas and Gracias, Lempira and the Celaque National Park. As before, tobacco farming remains a staple of the local economy, particularly the cultivation of premium cigar tobaccos. The La Flor de Copán cigar factory is located in the city.
History
The town was founded in the early 18th century. On 8 August 1705, the Spanish colonial captain Don Juan García de la Candelaria acquired the area then called "Los Llanos" from the Spanish crown and founded his estate with four ranches, later the first settlers named it Santa Rosa, and later Santa Rosa de Los Llanos. A tobacco industry developed in the early 18th Century and in 1765 the town was picked as the site for La Real Factoria del Tabacos, the Royal Tobacco Company, a Spanish crown company. Later, the Gracias a Dios Department was split in two departments, becoming Copán department and Lempira department. The town was on various occasions the capital of the State of Honduras. On 7 May 1862 the nation's President Don Victoriano Castellanos Cortes, issued Legislative Decree No. 3, giving the country the title of "Republic of Honduras" instead of "State of Honduras." In 1865, the town was renamed Santa Rosa de Copán. Its Catedral de Santa Rosa, dedicated to Saint Rosa, is the cathedralepiscopal see of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán.
