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Counterclockwise from top: San Felipe Castle, cruise ship in the port city of Puerto Barrios, Livingston, Rio Dulce, Quirigua UNESCO World Heritage Site & 830 meter long bridge of Rio Dulce
Izabal is bordered to the north by Belize, to the northeast by the Gulf of Honduras, to the east by Honduras, and by the Guatemalan departments of Petén to the northwest, Alta Verapaz to the west, and Zacapa to the south.
The Izabal Department surrounds Lake Izabal (or Lago de Izabal), which is Guatemala's largest lake (about 48 km long and 24 km wide, with an area of about 590 km2). The Spanish Colonial fort of San Felipe, now a Guatemalan national monument, overlooks the point where the lake flows into the Río Dulce.
The small town of Izabal is on the south shore of the lake; before the construction of the ports of Livingston and Puerto Barrios in the 19th century this was Guatemala's main Caribbean Sea port and was the original seat of Izabal department; nowadays, however, Izabal town is a remote village that gets little traffic.
From the area around Lake Izabal, the Department of Izabal stretches along the Río Dulce to the coast of the Caribbean Sea.