Suriname

Suriname is a country in South America.

It is next to the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the land is rainforest. The capital city is Paramaribo.

Suriname sits on the northern coast of South America. It is one of the smallest countries on the continent, but its rainforest is huge: it covers the southern four-fifths of the country. Most people live in the north, near the coast.

The capital, Paramaribo, is on the Suriname River, about 15 kilometers from the ocean. Suriname's statistics office estimated about 625,000 people in the middle of 2022. Dutch is the official language, because Suriname was a colony of the Netherlands until 1975.

Britannica describes Suriname as one of the smallest countries in South America yet one of the most ethnically diverse, with an economy dependent on mineral resources, mainly oil and gold. Bauxite and alumina once earned most of the country's export income, but the Suralco refinery and its mines closed in 2015. The southern four-fifths is almost entirely covered with pristine tropical rainforest.

The General Bureau of Statistics (ABS) estimated the mid-2022 population at 624,900 (a provisional figure); the last published census, in 2012, counted 541,638 usual residents, and results of the census taken in October 2024 had not been published when this page was written. About two-thirds of people live in urban areas. Suriname is a multiparty republic with a 51-seat National Assembly.

Paramaribo is the capital.

It has old wooden houses by a wide river. Boats sail on the Suriname River. Most towns are near the sea.

Paramaribo spreads out along the Suriname River. Its old center, laid out by Dutch colonists from 1683, is full of white wooden buildings and has been a World Heritage Site since 2002. The waterfront in the photo is called the Waterkant.

Other towns are much smaller: Nieuw Nickerie in the northwest near Guyana, Albina on the river border with French Guiana, and Moengo and Paranam, where bauxite, the rock used to make aluminum, was mined and processed for many years.

UNESCO describes Paramaribo as a former Dutch colonial town of the 17th and 18th centuries, made mainly of wooden buildings that blend Dutch, other European and later North American influences with elements of Creole culture. Laid out from 1683 on a grid along an axis running northwest from Fort Zeelandia, its main streets follow shell ridges that gave a naturally drained base; the historic center was inscribed in 2002.

Some two-fifths of urban Surinamese live in and around the capital. Smaller centers include Nieuw Nickerie near the Guyanese border, Albina on the border with French Guiana, Moengo in the northeastern bauxite region and Paranam, on the Suriname River south of Paramaribo, whose alumina refinery closed in 2015. Almost everyone in the interior lives in small settlements, many of them Maroon villages.

The coast is flat and muddy.

Big rivers flow north to the sea. Farther south, rainforest covers hills and mountains. The weather is warm and rainy.

Suriname's coast is made of mud and sand carried by ocean currents from the mouth of the Amazon River, far to the east in Brazil. Behind it are swamps and flat plains, then rolling hills, and finally forested mountains near Brazil. The highest peak is Julianatop, at 1,230 meters.

Big rivers, such as the Courantyne, Coppename, Suriname and Maroni, flow north into the Atlantic. Paramaribo has four seasons: two rainy and two dry. About nine-tenths of the country is forest with more than 1,000 kinds of trees.

The 364-km coastal zone consists of sand and mudbanks deposited by equatorial currents from the Amazon's mouth. Inland lie the swampy New Coastal Plain, with clay and peat, the Old Coastal Plain, the 64-km-wide Zanderij belt of quartz-rich sands and rolling hills, and finally the forested highlands; Juliana Top (1,230 m) in the Wilhelmina Mountains is the highest summit. The most fertile soils are in polders reclaimed by diking and drainage.

The north has a minor rainy season (December–February), a minor dry season (February–April), a major rainy season (late April–mid-August) and a major dry season (mid-August–early December); Paramaribo receives about 2,400 mm a year. The Central Suriname Nature Reserve, created in 1998 by joining three reserves, covers about 1.6 million ha, around 11% of the country, and has granite inselbergs that rise from the forest to about 360 m above sea level.

Jaguars hunt in the rainforest.

Giant otters swim in the rivers. Sea turtles lay eggs on the beaches. Bright macaws fly over the trees.

About 150 kinds of mammals live in Suriname, including monkeys, jaguars, ocelots, sloths, anteaters, armadillos and manatees. The tapir is the biggest land mammal. About 650 kinds of birds have been seen, from tiny hummingbirds to parrots.

The Central Suriname Nature Reserve protects jaguars, giant armadillos, giant otters, tapirs and eight kinds of monkeys, plus harpy eagles, scarlet macaws and the orange Guianan cock-of-the-rock. On the eastern beaches, sea turtles come ashore to lay eggs, and the law protects them.

Britannica counts some 150 mammal species (including monkeys, wild pigs, deer, manatees, jaguars, ocelots, armadillos, sloths and anteaters; the tapir is the largest), about 650 bird species and some 350 fish species; reptiles include caimans, iguanas and the boa constrictor. Beaches on the eastern coast are breeding grounds for marine turtles protected by law.

UNESCO describes the Central Suriname Nature Reserve as uninhabited and unhunted, with viable populations of jaguar, giant armadillo, giant river otter, lowland tapir and eight primate species, about 400 bird species including the harpy eagle, Guianan cock-of-the-rock and scarlet macaw, and nearly 5,000 vascular plants, many endemic. Of Suriname's 1,890 known vertebrate species, at least 65 are endemic to the country. The animal photos on this page were taken in other countries.

People in Suriname have families from many places.

Some came from India, Africa, Indonesia or China. Many people speak Dutch and Sranan. Christians, Hindus and Muslims all live here.

Suriname is one of the most mixed countries in South America. The biggest group are South Asians, whose ancestors came from India to work on farms. Maroons, descendants of Africans who escaped slavery and built villages in the forest, are the next largest. Others have Creole, Javanese, Chinese, Indigenous, Lebanese, Portuguese or Dutch roots.

Dutch is the official language, but most people learn it as a second language. At home people may speak Sranan, Sarnami, Javanese, English, or Maroon and Indigenous languages. Christians, Hindus and Muslims all live here, and Judaism has been practiced in Suriname for centuries.

Britannica estimates South Asians (descendants of Indian contract laborers) at more than one-fourth of the population, Maroons at about one-fifth, Creoles (mainly of African descent) at one-tenth to one-fifth, and Javanese and people of mixed descent at almost one-seventh each. Indigenous peoples, the Carib and Arawak on the coast and the Trio, Wayana and others inland, are a tiny fraction; recent arrivals include "New Chinese" and Brazilians in gold mining.

Dutch is official, alongside Sranan and other creoles, English, Sarnami (from Hindi and Urdu), Javanese and Maroon and Indigenous languages. Nearly half the people are Christian, about one-fifth Hindu and one-tenth to one-fifth Muslim, and African and Indigenous religions are widely followed. After independence was announced in 1973, many people emigrated to the Netherlands; by some estimates a third had left by 1980.