Guyana
Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America. Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the country's largest city. Guyana is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Brazil to the south and southwest, Venezuela to the west, and Suriname to the east. It is part of The Guianas.
With a land area of, Guyana is the third-smallest sovereign state by area in mainland South America after Uruguay and Suriname, and is the second-least populous sovereign state in South America after Suriname; it is also one of the least densely populated countries on Earth. The official language of the country is English, although a large part of the population is bilingual in English and the indigenous languages. Guyana is the only country in mainland South America to have English as the official language. The majority of the population also speaks Guyanese Creole, which is an English-based creole. Guyana is part of the Commonwealth Caribbean. It is part of the mainland Caribbean region maintaining strong cultural, historical, and political ties with other Caribbean countries as well as serving as the headquarters for the Caribbean Community. In 2008, the country joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member.
It has a wide variety of natural habitats and very high biodiversity. The country also hosts a part of the Amazon rainforest, the largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest in the world. The region known as "the Guianas" consists of the large shield landmass north of the Amazon River and east of the Orinoco River known as the "land of many waters". Nine indigenous tribes reside in Guyana: the Wai Wai, Macushi, Patamona, Lokono, Kalina, Wapishana, Pemon, Akawaio and Warao. Historically dominated by the Lokono and Kalina tribes, Guyana was colonised by the Dutch before coming under British control in the late 18th century. It was governed as British Guiana with a mostly plantation-style economy until the 1950s, forming part of the British West Indies. It gained independence in 1966 and officially became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970. The legacy of British colonialism is reflected in the country's political administration, lingua franca and diverse population, which includes Indian, African, Indigenous, Chinese, Portuguese, other European, and various multiracial groups.
In 2017, 41% of the population of Guyana lived below the poverty line. Guyana's economy has been undergoing a transformation since the discovery of crude oil in 2015 and commercial drilling in 2019, with its economy growing by 49% in 2020, making it, by some accounts, currently the world's fastest-growing economy. Guyana is poised to become one of the world's largest per capita oil producers by 2025, thanks to massive offshore oil discoveries. Since 2017, over 11 billion barrels of oil reserves have been found off the country's coast—the largest addition to global oil reserves since the 1970s. The crude oil production has made Guyana a major participant in international energy trade in early 2020s. Guyana is now ranked as having the fourth-highest GDP per capita in the Americas after the United States, Canada, and the Bahamas. According to the World Bank in 2023, abject poverty still exists and the country faces significant risks in structurally managing its growth.
Etymology
The name "Guyana" derives from The Guianas, an earlier name for a larger region that included the areas now called Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, the Guayana Region in Venezuela, and Amapá in Brazil. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name "Guyana" comes from an indigenous Amerindian language and means "land of many waters". The word Co‑operative in the official name refers to co-operative socialism.History
Before colonisation
What is now Guyana has been inhabited for millennia. Nine indigenous tribes reside in Guyana: the Wai Wai, Macushi, Patamona, Lokono, Kalina, Wapishana, Pemon, Akawaio, and Warao. Many of these peoples practised shifting agriculture alongside hunting. Historians speculate that the Arawaks and Caribs originated in the South American hinterland and migrated northward, first to the present-day Guianas and then to the Caribbean islands. The Arawak, mainly cultivators, hunters, and fishermen, migrated to the Caribbean islands before the Carib and settled throughout the region.Colonial period
Although Christopher Columbus was the first European to sight Guyana during his third voyage, and Sir Walter Raleigh wrote an account in 1596, the Dutch were the first Europeans to establish colonies: Pomeroon, Essequibo, Berbice, and Demerara. After France invaded the Dutch Republic, the British assumed control in 1796, with the Dutch and British signing the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 in London that ceded Demerara-Essequibo and Berbice to Britain.In 1831, the united colonies of Demerara-Essequibo and separate colony of Berbice together became a single British colony known as British Guiana.
Since its independence in 1824, Venezuela has claimed the area of land to the west of the Essequibo River. Simón Bolívar wrote to the British government warning against the Berbice and Demerara settlers settling on land which the Venezuelans, as assumed heirs of Spanish claims on the area dating to the 16th century, claimed was theirs. In 1899, an international tribunal ruled that the land belonged to Great Britain. From the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, the British inherited Dutch territory which included lands between the Orinoco and Courantyne rivers. Dutch sovereignty over these settlements was recognised in 1648 by Spain with the Peace of Münster, which stated under Article 5 that the Dutch would retain all of the "lordships, cities, castles, fortresses, trades and lands in the... West Indies" under their possession at the time. However, the treaty did not specify the boundary between Spanish Guiana and Dutch Guiana.
Independence
Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom as a dominion on 26 May 1966 and became a republic on 23 February 1970, remaining a member of the Commonwealth. Shortly after independence, Venezuela began to take diplomatic, economic, and military action against Guyana to enforce its territorial claim to the Essequibo region. Five months after Guyana's independence, in October 1966, Venezuelan troops crossed the international border and seized Ankoko Island which has been under occupation ever since. Venezuelan troops quickly made military installations and an airstrip.Following independence, Forbes Burnham of the People's National Congress rose to power, quickly becoming a repressive authoritarian leader. Politics became divided on race with the Afro-Guyanese supporting Burnham's People's National Congress and the Indo-Guyanese supporting Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party, in what became known as aapan jaat politics, loosely translated from Guyanese Hindustani as "for your own kind".
Guyana was elected three times as a member of the UN Security Council in 1975–76, 1982–83 and 2024–25.
In 1978, a total of 918 people died at the Jonestown mass murder-suicide led by American cult leader Jim Jones at a remote settlement in northwest Guyana.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited Guyana to lobby for the resumption of free elections. On 5 October 1992, a new National Assembly and regional councils were elected in the first Guyanese election since 1964 to be internationally recognised as free and fair. Cheddi Jagan of the PPP was elected and sworn in as president on 9 October 1992. This reversed the monopoly that Afro-Guyanese traditionally had over Guyanese politics. The poll was marred by violence however.
In May 2008, President Bharrat Jagdeo was a signatory to the UNASUR Constitutive Treaty of the Union of South American Nations. The Guyanese government officially ratified the treaty in 2010.
In 2015, major oil reserves were discovered off the coast by ExxonMobil.
In March 2020, President David A. Granger narrowly lost the snap elections, following Granger's government loss of a vote of no confidence back in 2018. Granger refused to accept the results, but eventually five months later, Irfaan Ali of the People's Progressive Party/Civic was sworn in as the new president because of allegations of fraud and irregularities.
The National Trust of Guyana has designated nine historic sites as national monuments.
A referendum in neighbouring Venezuela was held in December 2023 on the annexation of the disputed Essequibo region, which lies entirely in the territory of Guyana. The vote passed with a 95% majority, but with a low turnout, with analysts stating Maduro's government had falsified the results. This came at the same time as a Venezuelan military buildup on the Guyanese border, sparking concerns of war between the two states.
In September 2025, Irfaan Ali was re-elected for a second term as Guyana’s president.
Geography
The territory controlled by Guyana lies between latitudes 1° and 9°N, and longitudes 56° and 62°W; it is one of the world's most sparsely populated countries.The country can be divided into five natural regions: a narrow and fertile marshy plain along the Atlantic coast where most of the population lives; a white sand belt further inland, containing most of Guyana's mineral deposits; the dense rain forests in the southern part of the country; the drier savannah areas in the south-west; and the smallest interior lowlands consisting mostly of mountains that gradually rise to the Brazilian border.
Some of Guyana's highest mountains are Mount Ayanganna, Monte Caburaí and Mount Roraima on the Brazil-Guyana-Venezuela tripoint border, part of the Pakaraima range. Mount Roraima and Guyana's table-top mountains are said to have been the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World. There are also many volcanic escarpments and waterfalls, including Kaieteur Falls which is one of the world's most powerful waterfalls. North of the Rupununi River lies the Rupununi savannah, south of which lie the Kanuku Mountains.
The four longest rivers are the Essequibo at long, the Courentyne River at, the Berbice at, and the Demerara at. The Courentyne river forms the border with Suriname. At the mouth of the Essequibo are several large islands, including the wide Shell Beach along the northwest coast, which is also a major breeding area for sea turtles and other wildlife.
The climate is tropical and generally hot and humid, though moderated by northeast trade winds along the coast. There are two rainy seasons, the first from May to mid-August, the second from mid-November to mid-January.
Guyana has one of the largest unspoiled rainforests in South America, some parts of which are almost inaccessible by humans. The rich natural history of Guyana was described by early explorers Sir Walter Raleigh and Charles Waterton and later by naturalists Sir David Attenborough and Gerald Durrell. In 2008, the BBC broadcast a three-part programme called Lost Land of the Jaguar which highlighted the huge diversity of wildlife, including undiscovered species and rare species such as the giant otter and harpy eagle.