Guyana

Guyana is a country on the Atlantic coast of northern South America, between Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname. Georgetown is the capital and largest city and the seat of the Caribbean Community. English is the official language, the only case on the South American mainland, while most people speak Guyanese Creole.

The Lokono and Kalina were the leading Indigenous peoples when Columbus sighted the coast in 1498, and Walter Raleigh wrote an account of it in 1596. The Dutch founded the first colonies, Pomeroon in 1581, Essequibo in 1616, Berbice in 1627 and Demerara in 1752, and turned the coast into sugar plantations. Britain took control in 1796, gained the colonies by treaty in 1814 and joined them as British Guiana in 1831. From 1838 workers came from India, and their descendants form the largest group. Venezuela has claimed the land west of the Essequibo River since the 1820s.

Independence came on 26 May 1966, and the country became a republic on 23 February 1970. Forbes Burnham of the People's National Congress and Cheddi Jagan of the People's Progressive Party led the country in its first decades. In 1978 a total of 918 people died at Jonestown, the settlement of the American cult leader Jim Jones. Elections in 1992 were the first accepted as free since 1964. Guyana asked the International Court of Justice in 2018 to uphold the 1899 border ruling against Venezuela. An executive president leads the state and the cabinet, and laws pass through the elected National Assembly.

The country covers 214,969 km² (83,000 sq mi), much of it rainforest. Rice, Demerara sugar, bauxite, gold, timber and seafood long drove the economy, until ExxonMobil found large oil reserves offshore in 2015 and production started in 2019. Kaieteur Falls lies among the waterfalls of the interior, and Mount Roraima, 2,772 m (9,094 ft) high on the border with Brazil and Venezuela, is said to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. Pepperpot, a meat stew flavored with cassareep, is served on special occasions, and Guyanese cricketers play for the West Indies team.