Oil discovery turned a rainforest republic into a growth rocket
Co-operative Republic of Guyana faces the Atlantic between Suriname, Brazil, and Venezuela as part of the Guianas, with capital Georgetown. Third-smallest mainland South American state by area (214,969 km2) and second-least populous after Suriname, it stayed thinly settled until offshore oil arrived.
Guyana's name comes from the Guianas, the old label for a region that also took in Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuela's Guayana Region and Brazil's Amapá; the Oxford English Dictionary traces it to an Indigenous word. Nine Indigenous peoples live there, among them the Wai Wai, Macushi, Lokono, Kalina and Warao. English is the official language, and the country is among the world's most sparsely populated.
Columbus sighted the coast in 1498 and Walter Raleigh wrote about it in 1596, but the Dutch founded the first colonies: Pomeroon in 1581, Essequibo in 1616, Berbice in 1627 and Demerara in 1752. Britain took control in 1796 after France invaded the Dutch Republic, and in 1831 merged the colonies into British Guiana. Venezuela has claimed everything west of the Essequibo River since 1824; an international tribunal settled the boundary in 1899, yet a Venezuelan referendum in December 2023 backed annexation.
Independence came on 26 May 1966, and Guyana became a republic in 1970. Forbes Burnham's authoritarian rule hardened a politics split along racial lines between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese parties. In 1978, 918 people died in the Jonestown mass murder-suicide led by the American cult leader Jim Jones. The 1992 election, which Jimmy Carter had lobbied for, was the first since 1964 recognised as free and fair, and Cheddi Jagan became president.
Five natural regions run from the marshy coastal plain, where most people live, to a white sand belt holding most minerals, then rainforest highlands and savanna. Mount Roraima, at 2,772 metres, is the highest peak and is said to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle; the Essequibo, at 1,010 kilometres, is the longest river. ExxonMobil found major offshore oil in 2015, and output that began in 2019 pushed growth to 49 percent in 2020.
Source: Guyana
