The Guianas
region in northeastern South America
The Guianas, also spelled Guyanas or Guayanas, are a geographical region in north-eastern South America. In contemporary use, the term usually refers to "the three Guianas": Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.
More broadly, it refers to the South American coast from the mouth of the Orinoco to the mouth of the Amazon.
From West to East the region is divided into:
formerly Spanish or Venezuelan Guiana, now the Delta Amacuro State and Guayana Region of Venezuela;
formerly British Guiana, now Guyana, independent since 1966.
formerly Dutch Guiana or Surinam, now Suriname, independent since 1975.
French Guiana, an overseas department and region of France.
formerly Portuguese or Brazilian Guiana, now the Amapá State of Brazil.
The three Guianas have a combined population of 1,718,651; Guyana: 804,567, Suriname: 612,985, and French Guiana: 301,099. Most of the population is along the coast. Due to the jungles to the south, the Guianas are one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth.
“The Guianas” enters the record as region in northeastern South America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Guianas, region and northeastern can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“The Guianas” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Guianas, region and northeastern provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q650667. VIAF identifies the subject as 316430188. The Library of Congress control number is sh85057709. Authority coordinates are 4.320, -56.077. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Guianas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.