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Guyana, in full, Co-operative Republic
of Guyana, republic on the northern coast of South
America. It is bounded on the north by the
Atlantic Ocean, on the east by Suriname, on the
south by Brazil, and on the west by Brazil and
Venezuela and famous for its
Kaieteur Falls.
Guyana
has an area of 214,969 sq km (83,000 sq mi), and
its coastline is 459 km (285 mi) long. Formerly a
British colony known as British Guiana, Guyana is
a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, an
association of nations that once formed the
British Empire. Georgetown is its
capital.
Although
Guyana is a South American nation, it has more in
common with the smaller islands of the West
Indies, with which it shares certain cultural,
historical, and economic characteristics. Like
most of the smaller islands that dot the eastern
Caribbean, Guyana was not settled by the Spanish
and Portuguese. Guyana was originally a Dutch
colony that came under British control in the
early 18th century.
Guyana’s
economy was traditionally dominated by sugar
cultivation since the early 18th century. When
settlers introduced sugar production, it brought
dramatic changes in the population of Guyana.
European colonists imported large numbers of
African slaves to work the fields. Later,
following the abolition of slavery in the 19th
century, workers arrived from the Indian
subcontinent to work as laborers on the
plantations. By the end of the 20th century,
Indians and Africans were the largest ethnic
groups in Guyana.
In
1966, after more than 150 years of colonial rule,
British Guiana achieved independence and adopted
the name Guyana, a Native American word meaning
“land of waters.” Since independence, political
parties have formed along ethnic lines, and
moderately left-wing governments have ruled
Guyana. Afro-Guyanese dominated the government
until the 1990s, when a political party associated
with Guyanese of Indian descent gained control of
the government.
Any
additional legal information about Guyana
citizenship by naturalization is available upon
request.
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