Ciudad Blanca - 'White City' of Gold

The legend of the lost city of Ciudad Blanca - 'White City' of Gold was first recorded by Hernan Cortes who, in 1526, came to the town of Trujillo, on the north coast of Honduras. In 1544, Bishop Cristobol de Pedraza, the Bishop of Honduras, wrote a letter to the King of Spain describing an arduous trip to the edge of the Mosquito Coast jungles. His guides, he wrote, assured him that the nobles there ate from plates of gold.

In 1939, adventurer Theodore Morde claimed to have found a "City of the Monkey God" which he and earlier explorers equated with the White City. However, he never provided a precise location for it. Morde died before returning to the region. Discovery of Ciudad Blanca was trumpted by the media again after a 2015 expedition explored one of the settlements discovered in a 2012 lidar survey, which expedition archaeologists determined was in fact a Pre-Columbian city.

Ciudad Blanca has played a central role in Central American mythology. Text's cite it as the birthplace of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and previous reported sightings over the years have described golden idols and elaborately carved white stones, leading to the lost city's name. The ancient inhabitants of Mosquitia are one of the least-known cultures in Central America. No positive confirmation of the existence of the city has yet been provided. If confirmed, the discovery of Ciudad Blanca would be comparable to sites such as Machu Picchu