French Guiana

French Guiana is in South America, but it is part of France.

People there use euros, just like in Paris.

French Guiana is on the northeastern coast of South America. Suriname lies to the west, Brazil to the south and east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast. It is not a separate country: it is part of France, so its people are French citizens and use the euro.

French is the official language. The capital, Cayenne, is the largest town. France's statistics office, INSEE, counted 293,996 people on January 1, 2023. The photo shows a street in Cayenne.

French Guiana, about 83,500 km², is the second-largest region of France by area after Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It was an overseas department from 1946 and became a single territorial collectivity in December 2015, with a 51-seat assembly; a prefect represents the French state.

INSEE's reference population on January 1, 2023 was 293,996, growing an average of 1.5 percent a year since 2017, the fastest of any French region except Mayotte, driven entirely by births exceeding deaths. Britannica's 2026 estimate is 293,200. The photo shows the avenue du Général-de-Gaulle in Cayenne.

Cayenne is the capital, by the sea.

At Kourou there is a spaceport where rockets go up into space.

Cayenne is the capital and has the international airport. In 1964 France chose Kourou, up the coast, for a rocket base, and since 1975 it has been shared with the European Space Agency as Europe's Spaceport. Kourou is just over 500 kilometers north of the equator, and launching near the equator helps rockets reach some orbits with less fuel.

Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, on the Maroni River in the west, had about 54,400 people in 2023. Most towns are near the coast, and the interior has few people.

Most people live in and around Cayenne and along the coast; the interior is largely uninhabited. INSEE counted about 54,400 residents in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in 2023, and the Centre Littoral community around Cayenne held 52 percent of the population.

In 1964 France chose Kourou over 14 other sites for the Centre Spatial Guyanais, and offered to share it with ESA when the agency was founded in 1975; ESA funds two-thirds of its annual budget and built launch facilities for Ariane and Vega rockets. At latitude 5°3', the Earth's rotation adds about 460 m/s to a launcher's speed.

Thick green forest covers the land.

Big rivers flow to the sea. Lots of rain falls here.

Dense tropical forest covers more than nine-tenths of French Guiana. Rivers flow northeast to the Atlantic: the Maroni River forms the border with Suriname and the Oyapock River the border with Brazil. Most of the land is low, with mountains in the south.

In 2007 France created the Amazonian Park of French Guiana. It covers 40 percent of French Guiana, about 3.4 million hectares, making it the largest national park in France and the European Union. It is very rainy: Cayenne gets about 3,800 millimeters a year. The photo shows forest in Brazil's Amazon, not here.

The land rests on the crystalline massif of the Guiana Highlands, deeply eroded by northeast-flowing rivers, so most of it is low-lying. The Tumuc-Humac Mountains in the south reach about 700 m; the highest point, Bellevue de l'Inini, is 831 m. Recent alluvium forms a swampy plain southeast of Cayenne and older deposits a savanna to the west.

The Parc amazonien de Guyane (February 27, 2007) covers 3.4 million ha, 40 percent of the territory, with inselbergs and forested peaks over 800 m; it borders Brazil's Tumucumaque National Park, together forming one of the world's largest protected areas. Rain falls heavily from December to July, about 3,800 mm a year around Cayenne, with monthly averages of 25–27 °C. The photo shows forest north of Manaus, Brazil.

Tapirs, sloths and armadillos live in the forest.

Caimans, which are related to crocodiles, live here too.

French Guiana's forests are home to tapirs, caimans, ocelots, sloths, great anteaters and armadillos, Britannica notes. The South American tapir in the photo was seen by a river in the southern Amazon of Brazil.

The Amazonian Park protects rare habitats such as inselbergs, huge rock outcrops, and the park's team follows special animal species over time.

Britannica lists tapirs, caimans, ocelots, sloths, great anteaters and armadillos among French Guiana's wildlife. The photo shows a South American tapir (Tapirus terrestris) on the Cristalino River in Brazil's southern Amazon.

The Parc amazonien de Guyane protects rare environments, including inselbergs (massive rock outcrops) and forested mountains above 800 m, and runs monitoring of emblematic species. Britannica notes that, outside the forest the state has reserved, most forest is open to logging.

People speak French and Guianese Creole.

Some families speak Indigenous languages, and others speak languages from far away.

Many people in French Guiana are Creole, of mixed descent. Others came from mainland France, Haiti, Suriname, the French Caribbean islands, China, Brazil and South Asia. Indigenous peoples speak their own languages, such as Wayampi, Carib and Emerillon.

French is the official language, and many people speak Guianese Creole. Many families farm small plots of cassava, rice and bananas. Five communes in the south, home to about 17,200 people in 2023, make up the Amazonian Park's territory.

The population is principally Creole, with minorities of metropolitan French, Haitians, Surinamese, Antilleans, Chinese, Brazilians, South Asians and others; immigration from Southeast Asia, Haiti and the French Caribbean began in the late 20th century. Languages include French (official), Guianese Creole, Indigenous languages such as Wayampi, Carib and Emerillon, and immigrant languages; Britannica gives more than four-fifths of people as Christian, mainly Roman Catholic.

Britannica describes farming as mostly subsistence, centered on cassava, rice, bananas and cabbages, with wages and benefits set at the same rates as in France. Camopi, Maripasoula, Papaïchton, Saül and Saint-Élie make up the Amazonian Park's territory; INSEE counted 17,210 residents in the five communes in 2023 (the park's page says more than 18,000).