Tucked among Guyana, Brazil, and French Guiana on the northeastern coast of South America, the Republic of Suriname is home to giant sea turtles, dense tropical rain forests, and a variety of unique plants and animals. Almost half of the population of 430,000 lives in or near the capital city, Paramaribo, as the dense interior forests are hard to reach by road.

The first inhabitants of Suriname, the Arawaks, arrived around 3,000 B.C. As nomads, they followed the migratory patterns of the animals they ate and didn't build any notable cities. The British first arrived there in 1650 and encountered hostile natives and protective Dutch competitors. Many settlers in Suriname were killed by indigenous groups or died from tropical diseases, so the English finally traded the land for New York, which was a Dutch colony. Eventually, the Dutch set up sugar plantations in Suriname to establish a working economy.

During the first half of the twentieth century, entrepreneurs explored Suriname's natural resources, discovering rubber, gold, and bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum. During World War II, the bauxite mines became very important to the Allied efforts, so the economy shifted to almost total dependence on the raw material.

Suriname remained a Dutch colony until 1974. Then, a succession of military coups began that plunged the country into economic collapse and brought tremendous hardships to the people. Finally, in 1996, a peaceful government was successfully established and the newest nation on that continent began the process of rebuilding its economy. Although the dire straits of the early 1990s nearly caused Suriname's leaders to sell off the rain forests to Asian logging companies, viable solutions for economic growth were discovered that have preserved the natural beauty of the country.

The official language of Suriname is Dutch, but the people also speak a unique vernacular language called Sranan. This unique creole language is also known as Taki-taki and tends to unify an otherwise diverse and culturally distinct people.

Visit this site for more tourism information on Suriname:
http://www.surinfo.org/indexeng.htm

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