60 Fun Facts About Guyana

What is the capital and largest city of Guyana?

Georgetown sits at the mouth of the Demerara River, much of it below high-tide level behind a long seawall, and is laid out on a Dutch-style grid of canals.

Guyana is the only country in mainland South America with which official language?

English, inherited from British rule, is the sole official language, making Guyana unique on the South American mainland; most people speak Guyanese Creole day to day.

The name "Guyana" comes from an Indigenous Amerindian word meaning what?

'Guyana' derives from an Amerindian word usually rendered 'land of many waters'; the Guianas once named a larger region stretching from the Orinoco to the Amazon.

What is Guyana's currency?

The Guyanese dollar has been the currency since 1965, when it replaced the British West Indies dollar at par; it is issued by the Bank of Guyana, founded the same year.

In which year did Britain merge its three former Dutch colonies into the single colony of British Guiana?

Britain united the three colonies it had formally acquired under the 1814 Anglo-Dutch Treaty into the single colony of British Guiana on 21 July 1831.

In which year did Guyana gain independence from the United Kingdom?

Guyana became independent on 26 May 1966, the first of the three Guianas to leave European rule; it stayed in the Commonwealth and keeps the date as Independence Day.

In which year did Guyana become a republic?

Guyana became the Co-operative Republic of Guyana in 1970, replacing the British monarch as head of state with a ceremonial president, Arthur Chung, while staying in the Commonwealth.

The annual Mashramani festival, held on 23 February, celebrates what event?

Mashramani marks Guyana becoming a republic, with costume bands and floats through the capital; the name is said to come from an Arawak word for a celebration after cooperative work.

How many people died in the 1978 Jonestown mass murder-suicide in northwest Guyana?

The toll was 918: 909 at Jonestown itself, five at the Port Kaituma airstrip and four at the Temple's house in the capital; the settlement's formal name was the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project.

Which US congressman was murdered at the Port Kaituma airstrip on the day of the Jonestown deaths?

Leo Ryan, a California Democrat, had flown in to investigate the commune; Temple gunmen shot him and four others dead at the airstrip on 18 November 1978, hours before the poisonings.

Which former US president oversaw Guyana's 1992 elections, the first recognised as free and fair since 1964?

Jimmy Carter's Carter Center led the international observers for the October 1992 vote, which ended 28 years of People's National Congress rule and was the first accepted as free and fair since 1964.

Which Guyanese dentist-turned-leader became in 1953 the first Hindu to head a government outside the subcontinent?

Cheddi Jagan, a Northwestern-trained dentist, became chief minister in 1953 after the colony's first universal-suffrage election; Britain suspended the constitution within months, and his American-born wife Janet later became president.

Who served as Guyana's first executive president, from 1980 until his death in 1985?

Forbes Burnham led Guyana from December 1964, as premier and then prime minister, before the 1980 constitution made him executive president; he nationalised the bauxite and sugar industries.

Which Guyanese historian, author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, was killed in 1980?

Walter Rodney, a founder of the Working People's Alliance, earned his SOAS doctorate at 24 and was killed at 38 on 13 June 1980 when a bomb hidden in a walkie-talkie exploded in his car.

Who became Guyana's president after the disputed 2020 election?

Irfaan Ali of the People's Progressive Party/Civic was sworn in on 2 August 2020, five months after the March vote, once a recount confirmed his party's win over David Granger's coalition.

Which neighbour claims the territory west of Guyana's longest river, two-thirds of the country?

Venezuela claims everything west of the river, about two-thirds of Guyana; an 1899 Paris tribunal awarded the land to British Guiana, Venezuela revived the claim in 1962, and Guyana took it to the International Court of Justice in 2018.

Which is the longest river in Guyana, at about 1,010 km?

The Essequibo rises in the Acarai Mountains on the Brazilian border and runs about 1,010 km north to the Atlantic, where large islands such as Leguan and Wakenaam sit in its mouth.

Which river forms Guyana's border with Suriname?

The Courentyne, roughly 720 km long, is Guyana's second-longest river; the two countries dispute the New River Triangle, also called the Tigri Area, near its headwaters.

Kaieteur Falls plunges over which river?

The Potaro River drops off the Pakaraima plateau at Kaieteur before joining the country's longest river; the falls lie inside Kaieteur National Park, established in 1929.

How high is the single sheer drop of Kaieteur Falls?

The main plunge is 226 m, one of the tallest single-drop waterfalls in the world; adding the cascades below brings the total to 251 m, and average flow is about 663 cubic metres per second.

Which town on the Demerara River is the centre of Guyana's bauxite industry?

Linden, about 100 km up the Demerara River, combines the former bauxite towns of Mackenzie, Wismar and Christianburg; the Demerara Bauxite Company began mining there in 1916.

Which British geologist led the party that first brought Kaieteur Falls to European attention in 1870?

Charles Barrington Brown, a government geologist surveying the colony, reached the falls on 24 April 1870 and returned in 1871 to measure them; he described the trip in Canoe and Camp Life in British Guiana (1876).

Which table-top mountain of the Pakaraima range is Guyana's highest point?

Mount Roraima's 2,810 m summit lies across the western border; Guyana's high point, 2,772 m, is on the plateau's northern prong where three countries meet.

Guyana's tepuis are said to have inspired which 1912 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle?

The Lost World (1912) put Professor Challenger's dinosaurs on a flat-topped plateau cut off by sheer cliffs, an idea drawn from accounts of the tepuis, whose isolated summits hold species found nowhere else.

In Pemon, the name of Guyana's highest mountain combines words meaning "great" and which colour?

In Pemon, roroi means blue-green and ma means great, so the name reads 'great blue-green'; Everard im Thurn and Harry Perkins made the first recorded ascent in 1884.

What is Guyana's national bird, also known as the Canje pheasant?

The hoatzin is the sole surviving species of its family, Opisthocomidae; it ferments leaves in its crop, earning the name stinkbird, and its chicks have claws on their wings.

Which giant water lily is Guyana's national flower and appears on its coat of arms?

Victoria amazonica, whose floating leaves can exceed two metres across, is native to the Amazon basin and Guyana's rivers; its flowers open white on the first night and turn pink on the second.

Which animals serve as the supporters on Guyana's coat of arms?

Two jaguars flank the shield, one holding a pickaxe for mining and the other sugar cane and a rice stalk for the sugar and rice industries.

What is Guyana's national motto?

'One People, One Nation, One Destiny' appears on the scroll beneath the shield; the crest above is an Amerindian head-dress, the Cacique's Crown, flanked by two diamonds for the mining industry.

By what name is Guyana's national flag known?

The Golden Arrowhead, hoisted at independence, takes its name from the gold arrow pointing across a green field; red stands for zeal, green for farmland and forests, black for endurance and white for the rivers.

Guyana's flag was designed by which American vexillologist?

Whitney Smith, the American scholar who coined the word vexillology, drew the design in 1960; the College of Arms in London added the black and white borders between the coloured triangles.

According to the 2002 census, which is Guyana's largest ethnic group?

Indo-Guyanese, descendants of Indian indentured labourers, were 43.5% in the 2002 census, followed by Afro-Guyanese at 30.2%, people of mixed heritage at 16.7% and Amerindians at 9.2%.

In 2012, roughly what share of Guyana's population was Hindu?

Christians were 64% and Muslims 7%; for decades neither Hindu nor Muslim marriages were legally recognised in the colony.

Roughly what proportion of Guyana's people live on the narrow coastal strip?

About 90% of Guyanese live on the coastal plain, a strip only 16 to 64 km wide and much of it below sea level, protected by Dutch-built sea walls and drainage canals.

Which company discovered major oil reserves off Guyana's coast in 2015?

ExxonMobil's Liza-1 well, drilled in May 2015 about 190 km offshore, was the first major find; first oil flowed from the Liza field before the decade was out, with Hess and CNOOC as partners.

By 2023, the offshore discoveries were estimated at roughly how many barrels of recoverable oil?

By 2023 the operator put recoverable resources in the offshore block at more than 11 billion barrels, one of the largest additions to global reserves in decades, after a run of finds starting in 2015.

Into how many administrative regions is Guyana divided?

The regions are further split into 27 neighbourhood councils; the capital lies in Region 4, Demerara-Mahaica.

Guyana, Suriname and which other territory are the only places in South America driving on the left?

The Falkland Islands, a British territory, keep left like Guyana; Guyana's habit is a British colonial leftover, while Suriname kept left-hand traffic from its Dutch era.

Which regional organisation has its headquarters in Guyana?

The Caribbean Community secretariat sits in the capital, underlining how strongly the country identifies with the Caribbean rather than South America.

What was Guyana's capital called before it was renamed for King George III in 1812?

The name honoured a Dutch West India Company president, and it survives today in the city's famous cast-iron Stabroek Market.

What nickname does Guyana's capital carry?

The capital earned the nickname Garden City of the Caribbean for its tree-lined avenues and wooden colonial buildings; parts of it lie 2 m below high tide, kept dry by a seawall and Dutch-style canals with sluices called kokers.

St George's Cathedral in Guyana's capital, 43.5 m tall, is built mainly from which material?

The Gothic Revival building, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield and opened in 1892, is one of the tallest wooden churches in the world.

In which sport did Michael Parris win Guyana's first Olympic medal, at Moscow 1980?

Michael Parris took bronze in the bantamweight boxing division at the 1980 Moscow Games, the first Olympic medal for Guyana, which had competed since 1948.

El Dorado rum is made by which Guyanese company?

Demerara Distillers, at its Diamond estate on the Demerara River, makes El Dorado on some of the world's last working wooden stills, including the Port Mourant double pot still and the Enmore wooden Coffey still.

Guyanese pepperpot, the Christmas stew, is flavoured and preserved with which dark syrup?

Cassareep is boiled-down cassava juice, darkened with spices, that both flavours pepperpot and keeps the meat from spoiling, so the pot can be reheated and eaten over several days.

Which giant fish of Guyana's rivers is the world's largest scaled freshwater fish?

The arapaima, called pirarucu in Brazil, can exceed 3 m and must surface to gulp air; overfishing made it rare across much of its range, and Guyana's Rupununi rivers hold a protected population.

Which sea turtle is the main species nesting on Guyana's Shell Beach?

Leatherbacks, the largest sea turtles, are the main nesters at Shell Beach, joined by green, hawksbill and olive ridley turtles; the beach runs about 145 km along the northwest coast, in places built of pure shells.

Which Indigenous people manage Kanashen, the world's largest community-owned conservation area?

The Wai Wai received title to the Konashen district, about 6,250 square kilometres in Guyana's far south, in 2004 and later declared it a community-owned conservation area with Conservation International's support.

Which singer of "Electric Avenue" was born in Plaisance, British Guiana, in 1948?

Eddy Grant moved to London at 12, topped the UK chart with the Equals' 'Baby, Come Back' in 1968, and later coined the genre name ringbang; 'Electric Avenue' reached No. 2 in both the UK and US in 1983.

Which Guyanese batsman, famous for a crab-like stance, was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 2008?

Shivnarine Chanderpaul, from Unity Village, scored 11,867 Test runs and more than 20,000 in all internationals for the West Indies, and was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2022.

Which Sri Lankan bowler took four wickets in four balls at Providence Stadium in the 2007 World Cup?

Lasith Malinga dismissed four South Africans in four balls on 28 March 2007, the first such feat in one-day internationals; Providence, a 15,000-seat ground on the Demerara's east bank, was built for that tournament.

In which year did Guyana's national football team qualify for the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the first time?

Guyana reached the 2019 Gold Cup through the inaugural Nations League qualifying, then drew 1-1 with Trinidad and Tobago and lost to the United States and Panama in the group stage.

Balatá latex from Guyana's Rupununi was once prized as a cover material for which sporting goods?

Golf balls had balatá covers until synthetic ionomers took over in the 1990s; Guyanese bleeders tapped the bulletwood tree for the latex, and Macushi artisans also carve figurines from it.

Indian indentured labour to Guyana began in 1838 and ended in which year?

Britain halted Indian emigration under indenture in 1917, after about 240,000 Indians had been shipped to the colony since the first arrivals in 1838; most stayed on after their contracts ended.

Christopher Columbus sighted the coast of Guyana in 1498 during which of his voyages?

Sir Walter Raleigh wrote an account of the region in 1596, but neither Spain nor England founded lasting colonies there.

Guyana's Umana Yana, a national monument in the capital, is what kind of structure?

The benab was built in 1972 for a meeting of Non-Aligned foreign ministers and rebuilt in 2016 after a fire.

Which piece of Guyanese territory did Venezuelan troops seize in October 1966?

It has remained under Venezuelan occupation ever since, one strand of a border dispute now before the ICJ.

Which was the first Dutch colony established in what is now Guyana, in 1581?

The Pomeroon settlement of 1581 was the Dutch foothold, later destroyed by Spanish and Indigenous raids; the next colony followed on another river in 1616, with Berbice founded in 1627.

How many Indigenous tribes reside in Guyana, including the Wai Wai, Macushi and Warao?

Guyana recognises nine Indigenous nations: besides the three named, the Patamona, Lokono (Arawak), Kalina (Carib), Wapishana, Pemon (Arecuna) and Akawaio; together they are about a tenth of the population.

By roughly what percentage did Guyana's economy grow in 2020, by some accounts the world's fastest?

Growth followed the 2015 oil discovery and the start of commercial drilling in 2019.