FACTS
Capital: Georgetown
Currency: Guyanese dollar
Time zone: UTC-4
GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENT
Guyana is situated on the Northern coast of South America. With a tropical climate it has five natural regions: a narrow and fertile marshy plain along the Atlantic coast, a hilly sand and clay region more inland, dense rainforests in the middle, grassy flat savannah in the South, and the mountains rising towards the Brazilian border. Guyana has one of the largest unspoilt rainforests in South America, some of which is inaccessible to humans. Guyana has two of the WWF’s Global 200 eco-regions most crucial to the conservation of global biodiversity: Guyana is home to several endemic species including the tropical hardwood tree, Greenheart.
PEOPLE AND DIALECTS
English is the official language with Cariban languages (indigenous to South America) spoken by a small minority. Guyanese Creole is widely spoken as is Guyanese English. Guyana is non-Hispanic and so the culture is very similar to that of the English-speaking Caribbean.
WILDLIFE
Guyana has one of the highest biodiversities in the world. There are varied habitats not least the tepuis which have high levels of endemism due to their own micro-climates and inaccessibility. Guyana has declared more than 1 million acres of land in the Konashen Indigenous District as a community-owned conservation area, managed by the Wai Wai: it is the world’s largest conservation area of this type.
Plants, birds, mammals and insects abound and not least the secretive jaguar: in 2008 the BBC commissioned a three-part series documenting Guyana, the ‘Lost Land of the Jaguar’.