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French Guiana
Quick Overview:
French Guiana is situated on the northeast coast of South America and is bordered by Brazil and by Surinam to the west. Along the coast runs a belt of flat marshy land behind which the land rises to higher slopes and plains or savannah. The interior is comprised of equatorial jungle. Off the rugged coast lie the Iles du Salut and Devil's Island. Cayenne, the capital and chief port, is on the island of the same name at the mouth of the Cayenne River. Cayenne, French Guiana's atmospheric capital and chief port offers a number of attractive sights. Points of interest include the Jesuit-built residence of the Prefect in the Place de Grenoble and the Botanical Gardens. The main French Space Centre was built in Kourou. Ultra-modern buildings now dominate the city. Tourist attractions include tours of the space centres and bathing or fishing in the Sporting and Aero Club. Continental, Vietnamese, Chinese, Creole and Indonesian cusinine can be sampled in most restaurants. There is good nightlife in Cayenne, Kourou and St Laurent du Maroni.
Geography:
French settlement dates from 1604. In the Dutch wars of Louis XIV, Cayenne was captured (1676) by the Dutch but was later retaken. The Portuguese and British occupied it during the Napoleonic Wars, but the Congress of Vienna (1815) restored French authority. French Guiana was used as a penal colony and place of exile during the French Revolution, and under Napoleon III permanent penal camps were established. Devils Island, one of the Îles du Salut, off the coast, became notorious. The penal colonies were evacuated after World War II. In 1947, French Guiana became an overseas department of France, and in 1974 it also became an administrative region. A rocket-launching base at Kourou, established in 1968, is used by the European Space Agency for communication satellites. Economic problems and divisions between the white European elite and the Creole majority persisted into the 1990s, accompanied by increasing local demands for autonomy
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