usa | world | animals | vocabulary | health | science | math | history

 

 

Map Courtesy CIA World Factbook

The Republic of Suriname, more commonly known as Suriname or Surinam, (formerly known as Netherlands Guiana and Dutch Guiana) is a country in northern South America, in between French Guiana to the east and Guyana to the west. The southern border is shared with Brazil and the northern border is the Atlantic coast. The most southern parts of the borders with Guyana and French Guiana are disputed (upper Corantijn and Marowijne rivers—the map shows the Guyana and Guiana versions of the border).

Though Dutch traders had established several colonies in the Guiana region before around 1600, the Dutch did not get full control of what is now Suriname until the Treaty of Breda, settling the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

After becoming an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1954, independence was granted in 1975. A military regime led by Dési Bouterse ruled the country in the 1980s, until democracy was re-established in 1988.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Suriname".