About 80 results for ‘French Guiana’
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French Guiana
French Guiana (officially just Guyane) is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations: Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west. Its 83,534 km (32,253 sq mi) have a very low population density of less than 3 /km (7.8 /sq mi), with almost half of its 229,000 people in 2009 living in the urban area of Cayenne, its capital. The addition of the adjective "French" in English comes from colonial times when five such colonies existed, namely from west to east: Spanish Guiana, British Guiana, Dutch Guiana, French Guiana, and Portuguese Guiana (now Amapá, a state in far northern Brazil). French Guiana and the two larger countries to the north and west, Guyana and Suriname, are still often collectively referred to as the Guianas and comprise one large shield landmass. A large part of the department's economy derives from the presence of the Guiana Space Centre, now the European Space Agency's primary launch site near the equator.
