French Guiana travel guide

French Guiana ( or ; French: Guyane [ɡɥijan] (listen); French Guianese Creole: Lagwiyann [la.ɡɥi.jãn]) is an overseas department of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas. Bordered by Suriname to the west and Brazil to the east and south, French Guiana covers a land area of 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi), and is inhabited by 301,099 people.



French Guiana is the second-largest region of France (more than one-seventh the size of Metropolitan France) and the largest outermost region within the European Union. It has a very low population density, with only 3.6 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.3/sq mi). (Its population is less than 1⁄200 that of Metropolitan France.) Half of its 301,099 inhabitants in 2023 lived in the metropolitan area of Cayenne, its capital. 98.9% of the land territory of French Guiana is covered by forests, a large part of which is primeval rainforest. The Guiana Amazonian Park, which is the largest national park in the European Union, covers 41% of French Guiana's territory.

Since December 2015, both the region and department have been ruled by a single assembly within the framework of a new territorial collectivity, the French Guiana Territorial Collectivity (French: collectivité territoriale de Guyane). This assembly, the French Guiana Assembly (French: assemblée de Guyane), replaced the former regional council and departmental council, which were disbanded. The French Guiana Assembly is in charge of regional and departmental government. Its president is Gabriel Serville.



Fully integrated in the French Republic since 1946, French Guiana is a part of the European Union, and its official currency is the euro. A large part of French Guiana's economy depends on jobs and businesses associated with the presence of the Guiana Space Centre, now the European Space Agency's primary launch site near the equator. As elsewhere in France, the official language is standard French, but each ethnic community has its own language, of which French Guianese Creole, a French-based creole language, is the most widely spoken. French Guiana is the only territory on the continental mainland of either North or South America that is under the sovereignty of a European state, much less fully integrated in a European state.

The border between French Guiana and Brazil is the longest land border that France shares with another country, as well as one of only two borders which France shares with non-European states, the other being the border with Suriname in the west.