79-915: Jean-Marie Taubira ( French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ maʁi tobiʁa] ; born 15 August 1950) is a French politician from Cayenne . He was Secretary General of the Walwari party which he co-founded in 1993, later creating the Guianese Progressive Party in 2008. Taubira has considerable experience in the private sector and economy. He has been Director of the Coopérative des Pêcheurs de Guyane (CODEPEG SA), Director of ATENOR SARL (gold company), Chief Financial Officer of an enterprise group AC: RGI SA (printing), TRIMARG SARL (office), RCI Guyane (radio), Chief Financial Officer for transport, tourism and education, and an advisor to agricultural company E.Z. AGRICOLE. This article about
158-623: A land area of 83,534 km (32,253 sq mi). As of January 2024, it is home to approximately 295,385 people. French Guiana is the second-largest region in France, being approximately one-seventh the size of Metropolitan France, and the largest outermost region within the European Union . It has a very low population density, with only 3.6 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.3/sq mi). About half of its residents live in its capital, Cayenne. Approximately 98.9% of French Guiana
237-650: A slave rebellion in the colony of Saint-Domingue . However, the 1794 decree was only implemented in Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe and French Guiana, while the colonies of Senegal , Mauritius , Réunion , Martinique and French India resisted the imposition of these laws. Bill Marshall, Professor of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Stirling , wrote of French Guiana's origins: The first French effort to colonize Guiana, in 1763, utterly failed, as settlers were subject to high mortality given
316-532: A French Guianan politician is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . French Guiana French Guiana is an overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies . Bordered by Suriname to the west and Brazil to the east and south, French Guiana covers a total area of 84,000 km (32,000 sq mi) and
395-462: A buffer against neighbouring states. With this goal in mind, the Dutch dispatched explorer Jacob Cornelisz to survey the area in 1597. His clerk, Adriaen Cabeliau, related the voyage of Cornelisz and his survey of Indian groups and areas of potential trade partnerships in his diary. Throughout the seventeenth century, the Dutch made gains by establishing trading colonies and outposts in the region and in
474-814: A durable presence until colonists founded Cayenne in 1643. Guiana was developed as a slave society , where planters imported Africans as enslaved labourers on large sugar and other plantations. The system of slavery in French Guiana continued until the French Revolution , when the National Convention voted to abolish the French slave trade and slavery in France's overseas colonies in February 1794, months after enslaved Haitians had started
553-463: A few centuries later. Over the centuries of the pre-colonial period , the ebb and flow of power between Arawak and Carib interests throughout the Caribbean resulted in a great deal of intermingling (some forced through capture, some accidental through contact). This ethnic mixing, particularly in the Caribbean margins like the Guianas, produced a hybridised culture. Despite their political rivalry,
632-642: A growing proportion of the population in Guyana and Suriname. Javanese Surinamese are another major group in Suriname, who are descendants of indentured labourers recruited from Dutch colonies in Indonesia, and both Guyana and Suriname have Chinese and Portuguese communities, as well as a small number of Jews in Suriname . French Guiana's population is largely African; there are also minorities of European, Chinese, and Hmong descent. French Guiana has also been
711-572: A high level of biodiversity of both flora and fauna . This is due to the presence of old-growth forests (i.e., ancient/primary forests), which are biodiversity hotspots . The rainforests of French Guiana provide shelter for many species during dry periods and terrestrial glaciation. These forests are protected by a national park (the Guiana Amazonian Park ), seven additional nature reserves , and 17 protected sites. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and
790-459: A penal colony, officials sometimes used convicts to catch butterflies. The sentences of the convicts were often long, and the prospect of employment very weak, so the convicts caught butterflies to sell in the international market, both for scientific purposes as well as general collecting. A border dispute with Brazil arose in the late 19th century over a vast area of jungle, resulting in the short-lived, pro-French, independent state of Counani in
869-484: A subsequent reinforcement later in the year, only two individuals remained alive long enough to reach the Dutch settlement on the Pomeroon River in 1645, begging for refuge. Though some trading outposts that could be considered permanent settlements were founded as early as 1624, French “possession” of the land now known as French Guiana is not recognised as having taken place until at least 1637. Cayenne itself,
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#1732768350864948-622: A sugar-cultivating area, so the commandeur began shifting focus toward the development of the region, signifying his intentions by transferring the administrative center of the colony from Fort Kijkoveral to Flag Island, on the mouth of the Essequibo River, further east and closer to Demerara. These operations were carried out by Gravesande, acting as the Secretary of the Company under Gelskerke. Upon Gelskerke’s death, Gravesande continued
1027-590: Is a chronic issue in the remote interior rain forest of French Guiana. The region still faces such problems as illegal immigration, poorer infrastructure than mainland France, higher costs of living, higher levels of crime and more common social unrest. In 1964, French president Charles de Gaulle decided to construct a space-travel base in French Guiana. It was intended to replace the Sahara base in Algeria and stimulate economic growth in French Guiana. The department
1106-573: Is also one of the most racially diverse regions on Earth, particularly in Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, due to their long histories of migration to the region brought by slavery and indentured labour. The entire region has a large Amerindian population of the Arawak and Carib language groups. There are a number of uncontacted peoples in the region due to the region's isolation. The two largest ethnic groups in Guyana and Suriname are Indians , who are largely descended from indentured labourers from
1185-619: Is compatible with requirements for environmental protection. The coastal environment along the RN1 has historically experienced the most changes, but development is occurring locally along the RN2 , and also in western French Guiana due to gold mining. 5,500 plant species have been recorded, including more than a thousand trees, along with 700 species of birds, 177 species of mammals, over 500 species of fish including 45% of which are endemic and 109 species of amphibians . French Guiana's high biodiversity
1264-639: Is covered by forests, much of it primeval rainforest . The Guiana Amazonian Park , the largest national park in the EU covers 41% of French Guiana's territory. Since December 2015, both the region and department have been ruled by a single assembly within the framework of a single territorial collectivity , the French Guiana Territorial Collectivity. This assembly, the French Guiana Assembly , replaced
1343-526: Is hot and oppressively humid all year round. During most of the year, rainfall across the country is heavy due to the presence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and its powerful thunderstorm cells. In most parts of French Guiana, rainfall is always heavy especially from December to July – typically over 330 millimetres or 13 inches can be expected each month during this period throughout the department. Between August and November,
1422-505: Is one of the largest worldwide for the leatherback turtle . French Guiana has some of the poorest soils in the world. The soil is low in nutrients (e.g., nitrogen , potassium ) and organic matter . Soil acidity is another cause of the poor soils, and it requires farmers to add lime to their fields. The soil characteristics have led to the use of slash and burn agriculture. The resulting ashes elevate soil pH (i.e., lower soil acidity), and contribute minerals and other nutrients to
1501-634: Is one of the only creole languages that uses its own script, called Afaka syllabary . Pidgin languages spoken in the Guianas include Panare Trade Spanish , a pidgin between the Panare language and Spanish ; and Ndyuka-Tiriyó Pidgin , a pidgin spoken in Suriname until the 1960s formed between the creole Ndyuka language and the Amerindian Tiriyó language . Extinct creole languages in the Guianas are Skepi Creole Dutch and Berbice Creole Dutch , both based on Dutch and spoken in Guyana. The Guianas
1580-517: Is one that is inland, with a population of over 1 million people, Ciudad Bolivar with a population of 410,000 as well as another major city, Puerto Ayacucho , with a population of 41,000. Spanish , English , Dutch , French , and Portuguese are spoken in the Guianas: in Guayana , Guyana , Suriname , French Guiana , and Amapá , respectively. Suriname is the only sovereign nation, other than
1659-485: Is similar to that of other regions with tropical rainforests, such as the Brazilian Amazon, Borneo and Sumatra . Environmental threats include habitat fragmentation from roads, which remains very limited compared to other forests of South America; immediate and deferred impacts of EDF 's Petit-Saut Dam ; gold mining ; poor control of hunting and poaching , facilitated by the creation of many tracks; and
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#17327683508641738-523: Is still under the sovereignty of a European state. The border between French Guiana and Brazil is the longest land border that France shares with another country, as well as one of only two borders which France shares with non-European states, the other being the border with Suriname in the west. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the name "Guyana" is an indigenous term meaning "land of many waters". The addition of
1817-565: Is the euro . The country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for French Guiana is .gf , but .fr is generally used instead. In 2019, the GDP of French Guiana at market exchange rates was US$ 4.93 billion (€4.41 billion), ranking as the 2nd largest economy in the Guianas after Guyana (which discovered large oil fields in 2015 and 2018), and the 12th largest in South America. From
1896-514: The Bhojpuri regions of India, with smaller numbers from South India ; and Africans , descendants of enslaved West Africans brought to the region during colonial times. Africans are further divided into Creoles, who are located along the coastal regions, and Maroons , who are descendants of people who escaped slavery into the interior regions of the country. Multiracial people, who are largely Dougla people , of African and Indian descent, make up
1975-540: The COVID-19 recession in metropolitan France (-7.9% in 2020). French Guiana is heavily dependent on mainland France for subsidies, trade, and goods. The main traditional industries are fishing (accounting for 5% of exports in 2012), gold mining (accounting for 32% of exports in 2012) and timber (accounting for 1% of exports in 2012). In addition, the Guiana Space Centre has played a significant role in
2054-685: The Dutch States-General , but even a few years prior to the official chartering a fort and trading post had been built at Kijkoveral, under the supervision of Aert Groenewegen, at the confluence of the Essequibo, Cuyuni , and Mazaruni Rivers . British settlers also succeeded in establishing a small settlement in 1606 and a much larger one in modern-day Suriname in 1650, under the leadership of former Barbadian governor Francis Willoughby, Lord Parham . The French had also made less significant attempts at colonisation , first in 1604 along
2133-632: The European Union (EU) have recommended special efforts to protect these areas. Following the Grenelle Environment Round Table of 2007, the Grenelle Law II was proposed in 2009, under law number 2010–788. Article 49 of the law proposed the creation of a single organization responsible for environmental conservation in French Guiana. Article 64 proposes a "departmental plan of mining orientation" for French Guiana, which would promote mining (specifically of gold) that
2212-521: The GDP per capita of French Guiana at market exchange rates, not at PPP , was US$ 17,375 (€15,521), only 42.3% of metropolitan France 's average GDP per capita that year, and 50.3% of the metropolitan French regions outside the Paris Region . French Guiana was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, leading to a recession of -2.7% that year according to provisional estimates, moderate compared to
2291-500: The Hmong communities settled in French Guiana in the 1970s, both destined to the local market. A thriving rice production, developed on polders near Mana from the early 1980s to the late 2000s, has almost completely disappeared since 2011 due to marine erosion and new EU plant health rules which forbid the use of many pesticides and fertilizers. Tourism, especially eco-tourism , is growing. Unemployment has been persistently high in
2370-646: The James Webb Space Telescope into space. The Guianese General Council officially adopted a departmental flag in 2010. In a referendum that same year, French Guiana voted against becoming an autonomous overseas collectivity . In a second referendum , transition to a " single territorial collectivity " under Article 73 of the Constitution was approved. On 20 March 2017, French Guianese workers began going on strike and demonstrating for more resources and infrastructure . 28 March 2017
2449-517: The Louisiana Purchase and had lost all but Guadeloupe , Martinique , and French Guiana in the Caribbean region. The Dutch lost Berbice , Essequibo, and Demerara; these colonies were consolidated under a central British administration and would be known after 1831 as British Guiana . The Dutch retained Suriname. After 1814, the Guianas came to be recognised individually as British Guiana , French Guiana , and Dutch Guiana . Due to
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2528-579: The Sinnamary River . The settlement collapsed within a summer, and initial attempts at settlement near modern-day Cayenne , beginning in 1613, were met with similar setbacks. French priorities — land acquisition and Catholic conversion — were not easily reconciled with the difficulties of initial settlement-building on the Wild Coast. Even as late as 1635, the King of France granted permission to
2607-461: The 16th century in conjunction with its settlement of some Caribbean islands, such as Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue . Prior to European colonization , the territory was originally inhabited by Native Americans , most speaking the Arawak language , of the Arawakan language family. The people identified as Lokono . The first French establishment is recorded in 1503, but France did not establish
2686-534: The 1900s and 1910s, it suffered from a bad reputation due to its association with penal colonies and bad sanitary conditions ( yellow fever and malaria in particular). Population started to grow tremendously from the 1950s onwards with the improvement of sanitary conditions (yellow fever and malaria eradication campaigns started in 1949) and the establishment of the Guiana Space Centre in 1964. Population growth has been fueled both by high birth rates and large arrivals of immigrants (from metropolitan France , to man
2765-572: The 1960s to the 2000s, French Guiana experienced strong economic growth, fueled by the development of France's Guiana Space Centre (established in French Guiana in 1964 as the independence of Algeria in 1962 led to the closure of France's space center in the Algerian Sahara) and by high population growth which stimulated domestic consumption. French Guiana's economy did not suffer from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 :
2844-512: The 1970s and 80s, who were fleeing displacement after the communist takeover of Laos by Pathet Lao in 1975. In the late 1980s, more than 10,000 Surinamese refugees, mostly Maroons , arrived in French Guiana, fleeing the Surinamese Civil War . More recently, French Guiana has received large numbers of Brazilian and Haitian economic migrants . Illegal and ecologically destructive gold mining by Brazilian garimpeiros
2923-527: The 2010s. French Guiana's population reached 295,385 in 2024 (Jan. estimate), more than 10 times the population it had in 1954. There are three metropolitan areas (as defined by INSEE ) in French Guiana. These are Cayenne , which covers 6 communes (Cayenne, Remire-Montjoly , Matoury , Macouria , Montsinéry-Tonnegrande , and Roura ), Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni , made up of the namesake commune, and Kourou , which covers 2 communes (Kourou and Sinnamary ). The population of these three metropolitan areas at
3002-519: The 2021 census was the following: The Guianas The Guianas , also spelled Guyanas or Guayanas , is a geographical region in north-eastern South America . Strictly, the term refers to the three Guianas: Guyana , Suriname , and French Guiana , formerly British, Dutch, and French Guiana. Broadly, it refers to the South American coast from the mouth of the Orinoco to the mouth of
3081-574: The Amazon, he was pushed by winds and currents northwest along the Guiana coast until he reached a Spanish settlement west of Trinidad. Walter Raleigh began the exploration of the Guianas in earnest in 1594. He was in search of a great golden city at the headwaters of the Caroní River . A year later he explored what is now Guyana and eastern Venezuela in search of "Manoa", the legendary city of
3160-407: The Amazon. Politically it is divided into: The three Guianas proper have a combined population of 1,718,651; Guyana: 804,567, Suriname: 612,985, and French Guiana: 301,099 Most of the population is along the coast. Due to the jungles to the south, the Guianas are one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. Prior to c. 1815 there was a string of mostly Dutch settlements along
3239-468: The GDP grew by an average of +3.4% per year in real terms from 2002 to 2012, slightly faster than the rapidly growing population, which allowed French Guiana to catch up marginally with the rest of France in terms of standards of living. The GDP per capita rose from 48.0% of metropolitan France 's level in 2000 to 48.5% of metropolitan France in 2012. Since 2013, however, French Guiana's economic growth has been uneven, and more subdued. From 2013 to 2019,
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3318-729: The Guianas were populated by scattered bands of native Arawak people. The native tribes of the Northern amazon forests are most closely related to the natives of the Caribbean ; most evidence suggests that the Arawaks immigrated from the Orinoco and Essequibo River Basins in Venezuela and Guiana into the northern islands, and were then supplanted by more warlike tribes of Carib Indians , who departed from these same river valleys
3397-655: The Guianas, but this was cut short by the untimely death of the Grand Duke. English and Dutch settlers were regularly harassed by the Spanish and Portuguese, who viewed settlement of the area as a violation of the Treaty of Tordesillas . In 1613, Dutch trading posts on the Essequibo and Corantijn Rivers were completely destroyed by Spanish troops. The troops had been sent into the Guianas from neighbouring Venezuela under
3476-545: The Guianas. The Dutch joined in the exploration of the Guianas before the end of the century. Between the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1568 and 1648, when the Treaty of Münster was signed with the Spanish, the Dutch cobbled together different ethnicities and tribes and religious faiths into a viable economic entity. When beginning an empire, the Dutch concerned themselves more with trade and establishing viable networks and outposts than with claiming tracts of land to act as
3555-1071: The Netherlands, where Dutch is the sole official language. Languages spoken locally by specific ethnic groups include Arawakan and Cariban languages, Caribbean Hindustani , Maroon languages , Javanese , Chinese , Hmong , Haitian Creole , and Arabic . The diverse population and isolation of the region has led to the development of a number of creole and pidgin languages; these include Guyanese Creole in Guyana, Sranan Tongo , Saramaccan , Ndyuka , Matawai , and Kwinti in Suriname, and French Guianese Creole in French Guiana, and Karipúna French Creole in Amapa. These creole languages are based on English in Suriname and Guyana with significant influence from Dutch , Arawak , Cariban , Javanese , Hindustani , West African languages , Chinese , and Portuguese . French Guianese Creole and Karipuna French Creole are based on French with influences from Brazilian Portuguese and Arawak and Cariban languages. Ndyuka
3634-525: The adjective "French" in most languages other than French is rooted in colonial times, when five such colonies ( The Guianas ) had been named along the coast, subject to differing powers: namely (from west to east) Spanish Guiana (now Guayana Region in Venezuela), British Guiana (now Guyana ), Dutch Guiana (now Suriname ), French Guiana, and Portuguese Guiana (now Amapá in Brazil). French Guiana and
3713-466: The coast and along the Maroni River . Sugar and bananas were traditionally two of the main cash crops grown for export but have almost completely disappeared. Today they have been replaced by livestock raising (essentially beef cattle and pigs) in the coastal savannas between Cayenne and the second-largest town, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni , and market gardening (fruits and vegetables) developed by
3792-485: The coast which changed hands several times. They were mostly several miles upriver to avoid the coastal marshes which were only drained later. To the east and up the lower Amazon, there were a number of English, French and Dutch outposts that either failed or were expelled by the Portuguese. To the west, Spanish Guyana was thinly settled and interacted slightly with Pomeroon. Before the arrival of European colonials,
3871-535: The coast: the three Salvation's Islands which include Devil's Island , and the isolated Îles du Connétable bird sanctuary further along the coast towards Brazil. The Petit-Saut Dam , a hydroelectric dam in the north of French Guiana forms an artificial lake and provides hydroelectricity . There are many rivers in French Guiana, including the Waki River . As of 2007 , the Amazonian forest , located in
3950-531: The colonies along the Guiana coast were converted to profitable sugar plantations during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. War continued off and on among the three principal powers in the Guianas (the Netherlands, France, and Britain) until a final peace was signed in 1814 (the Convention of London ), heavily favouring the British. By this time France had sold off most of its North American territory in
4029-502: The colonies, though his policy was in many ways an extension of his predecessor, Hermanus Gelskerke. Commandeur Gelskerke had begun pressing for change from a trading focus to one of cultivation, especially of sugar . The area east of the existing Essequibo colony, known as Demerara , was relatively isolated and encompassed the trading areas of just a few indigenous tribes, thus it contained only two trading outposts during Gelskerke’s term of office. Demerara, though, showed great potential as
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#17327683508644108-457: The disputed territory. There was some fighting among settlers. The dispute was resolved largely in favour of Brazil by the arbitration of the Swiss government. The territory of Inini consisted of most of the interior of French Guiana when it was created in 1930. In 1936, Félix Éboué from Cayenne became the first black man to serve as governor in a French colony. During World War II and
4187-723: The eastern half experiences a warm dry season with rainfall below 100 millimetres or 3.94 inches and average high temperatures above 30 °C (86 °F) occurring in September and October, causing eastern French Guiana to be classified as a tropical monsoon climate ( Köppen Am ); Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in the west has a tropical rainforest climate ( Af ). French Guiana is home to many different ecosystems : tropical rainforests , coastal mangroves , savannahs , inselbergs and many types of wetlands . It lies within three ecoregions: Guayanan Highlands moist forests , Guianan moist forests , and Guianan mangroves . French Guiana has
4266-431: The economy grew by an average of only +1.2% per year in real terms. French Guiana experienced a recession of -0.8% in 2014, and social unrest in 2017 led to almost no economic growth that year. Economic growth recovered at +3.0% in 2018, but was again almost null (+0.2%) in 2019. As a result, the GDP per capita has remained stagnant in nominal terms since 2013, and has declined relative to metropolitan France's. In 2019,
4345-632: The ethnic and cultural blending between the two groups had reached such a level that, by the time the Europeans arrived, the Carib/Arawak complex in Guiana was so homogeneous that the two groups were almost indistinguishable to outsiders. Through the contact period following Columbus's arrival, the term "Guiana" was used to refer to all areas between the Orinoco, the Rio Negro , and the Amazon , and
4424-571: The fall of France to German forces, French Guiana became part of Vichy France . Guiana officially rallied to Free France on 16 March 1943. It abandoned its colony status and once again became a French department on 19 March 1946. Following the French withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1950s and subsequent war between the Viet Cong and the United States, France helped resettle several hundred Hmong refugees from Laos to French Guiana during
4503-509: The first permanent settlement of comparable size to the Dutch colonies, experienced instability until 1643. The Dutch appointed a new governor of the Guiana settlements in 1742. In this year, Laurens Storm van 's Gravesande took over the region. He held the position for three decades, coordinating the development and expansion of the Dutch colonies from his plantation Soesdyke in Demerara . Gravesande’s tenure brought significant change to
4582-548: The former regional and departmental council , which were dissolved. The French Guiana Assembly is in charge of regional and departmental government. Its president is Gabriel Serville . Fully integrated in the French Republic since 1946, French Guiana is a part of the European Union, and its official currency is the euro . A large part of French Guiana's economy depends on jobs and businesses associated with
4661-528: The introduction of all-terrain vehicles . Logging remains moderate due to the lack of roads, difficult climate, and difficult terrain. The Forest Code of French Guiana was modified by ordinance on 28 July 2005. Logging concessions or free transfers are sometimes granted by local authorities to persons traditionally deriving their livelihood from the forest. The beaches of the Amana Nature Reserve are an exceptional marine turtle nesting site. This
4740-427: The isolated geography of the Guianas, the region is one of the most isolated and sparsely populated on Earth. In most of the region, the population is almost entirely concentrated on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of river deltas, in the cities of Georgetown , Paramaribo , Cayenne , and Macapá . However, in Venezuela, major cities are inland: the largest city in the Guianas, Ciudad Guayana in Venezuela,
4819-486: The king known as El Dorado . Raleigh described the city of El Dorado as being located on Lake Parime far up the Orinoco River in Guyana. Much of his exploration is documented in his books The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana , published first in 1596, and The Discovery of Guiana, and the Journal of the Second Voyage Thereto , published in 1606. After the publication of Raleigh's accounts, several other European powers developed interest in
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#17327683508644898-402: The last few decades, standing between 17% and 24%. In recent years, the unemployment rate has declined from a peak of 23.0% in 2016 to 19.3% in 2019. French Guiana experienced a long period of demographic stagnation during the days of the Cayenne and Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni penal colonies (19th century and first half of the 20th century), when, with the exception of a brief gold rush in
4977-415: The late nineteenth century, France began requiring forced residencies by prisoners who survived their hard labour. A Portuguese-British naval squadron took French Guiana for the Portuguese Empire in 1809. It was returned to France with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Though Portugal returned the region to France, it kept a military presence until 1817. After French Guiana was established as
5056-403: The local economy since it was established in Kourou in 1964: it accounted directly and indirectly for 16% of French Guiana's GDP in 2002 (down from 26% in 1994, as the French Guianese economy is becoming increasingly diversified). The Guiana Space Centre employed 1,659 people in 2012. There is very little manufacturing. Agriculture is largely undeveloped and is mainly confined to the area near
5135-415: The mid-19th century, the French government transported approximately 56,000 prisoners to Devil's Island . Fewer than 10% survived their sentence. Île du Diable (Devil's Island) was the site of a small prison facility, part of a larger penal system by the same name, which consisted of prisons on three islands and three larger prisons on the mainland. This was operated from 1852 to 1953. In addition, in
5214-422: The modest peaks of the Tumuc-Humac mountains along the Brazilian frontier. French Guiana's highest peak is Bellevue de l'Inini in Maripasoula (851 m, 2,792 ft). Other mountains include Mont Itoupé (826 m, 2,710 ft), Cottica Mountain (744 m, 2,441 ft), Pic Coudreau (711 m, 2,333 ft), and Kaw Mountain (337 m, 1,106 ft). Several small islands are found off
5293-447: The most remote part of the department, is protected as the Guiana Amazonian Park , one of the ten national parks of France . The territory of the park covers some 33,900 km (13,090 sq mi) upon the communes of Camopi , Maripasoula , Papaïchton , Saint-Élie and Saül . French Guiana has an equatorial climate predominant. Located within six degrees of the Equator and rising only to modest elevations, French Guiana
5372-441: The neighbouring Caribbean islands under the banner of the Dutch West India Company . The company, established in 1621 for such purposes, benefited from a larger investment of capital than the English, primarily through foreign investors like Isaac de Pinto , a Portuguese Jew. The area was also cursorily explored by Amerigo Vespucci and Vasco Núñez de Balboa , and in 1608 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany also organised an expedition to
5451-402: The numerous tropical diseases and harsh climate: all but 2,000 of the initial 12,000 settlers died. After France ceded Louisiana to the United States in 1804, it developed Guiana as a penal colony , establishing a network of camps and penitentiaries along the coast where prisoners from metropolitan France were sentenced to forced labour . During operations as a penal colony beginning in
5530-431: The policy of Demerara expansion and the move to sugar cultivation. Conflict among the British, Dutch, and French continued throughout the seventeenth century. The Treaty of Breda (1667) sealed peace between the English and the Dutch. The treaty allowed the Dutch to retain control over the valuable sugar plantations and factories on the coast of Suriname which had been secured by Abraham Crijnssen earlier in 1667. All
5609-411: The premise of stamping out privateering and with the support of a cédula passed by the Spanish Council of the Indies and King Philip III . Nonetheless, the Dutch returned in 1615, founding a new settlement at present-day Cayenne (later abandoned in favour of Suriname ), one on the Wiapoco River (now more commonly known as the Oyapock) and one on the upper Amazon. By 1621, a charter was granted by
5688-538: The presence of the Guiana Space Centre , now the European Space Agency 's primary launch site near the equator. As elsewhere in France, the official language is standard French, but each ethnic community has its own language, of which French Guianese Creole , a French-based creole language , is the most widely spoken. French Guiana is the only territory on the continental mainland of the Americas that
5767-625: The public administrations and the space center, as well as from neighboring countries, in particular Suriname and Brazil ). Arrivals of Surinamese refugees reached record levels in the 1980s during the Surinamese Interior War , resulting in the highest population growth rate in French Guiana's history, recorded between the 1982 and 1990 censuses (+5.8% per year). In the 21st century, the birth rate has remained high, and new arrivals of migrants seeking asylum (in particular from Haiti ) have kept population growth above 2% per year in
5846-455: The soil. Sites of Terra preta ( anthropogenic soils) have been discovered in French Guiana, particularly near the border with Brazil. Research is being actively pursued in multiple fields to determine how these enriched soils were historically created, and how this can be done in modern times. As a part of France, French Guiana is part of the European Union and the Eurozone ; its currency
5925-471: The two larger countries to the north and west, Guyana and Suriname, are still often collectively referred to as "the Guianas" and constitute one large landmass known as the Guiana Shield . French Guiana was originally inhabited by indigenous people : Kalina , Lokono (part of the Arawak grouping), Galibi , Palikur , Teko , Wayampi and Wayana . The French attempted to create a colony there in
6004-450: The whole of Guiana to a joint-stock company of Norman merchants. When these merchants made a settlement near the modern city of Cayenne, failure ensued. Eight years later, a reinforcement contingent led by Charles Poncet de Brétigny found only a few of the original colonists left alive, living among the aborigines. Later that year, among the combined total of the original surviving settlers, the reinforcement contingent led by de Brétigny, and
6083-620: Was considered suitable for the purpose because it is near the equator and has extensive access to the ocean as a buffer zone. The Guiana Space Centre , located a short distance along the coast from Kourou , has grown considerably since the initial launches of the Véronique rockets. It is now part of the European space industry and has had commercial success with such launches as the Ariane 4 , Ariane 5 and Ariane flight VA256 which launched
6162-404: Was seen so much as a unified, isolated entity that it was often referred to as the “Island of Guiana.” Christopher Columbus first spotted the coast of the Guianas in 1498, but real interest in the exploration and colonisation of the Guianas, which came to be known as the "Wild Coast," did not begin until the end of the sixteenth century. In 1542, when Francisco de Orellana reached the mouth of
6241-469: Was the day of the largest demonstration ever held in French Guiana. French Guiana has been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak , with more than 1% of French Guianese testing positive by the end of June 2020. French Guiana lies between latitudes 2° and 6° N, and longitudes 51° and 55° W. It consists of two main geographical regions: a coastal strip where the majority of the people live, and dense, near-inaccessible rainforest which gradually rises to
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