Geography

Guyana is the size of Idaho and is situated on the northern coast of South America east of Venezuela, west of Suriname, and north of Brazil. The country consists of a low coastal area and the Guyana Highlands, a tropical forest zone covering more than 80% of the country, in the south. There is an extensive south-north network of rivers.

History

The Dutch, English, and French established colonies in what is now known as Guyana, but by the early 17th century the majority of the settlements were Dutch. During the Napoleonic wars Britain took over the Dutch colonies of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo, which became British Guiana in 1831.

British Guiana was made a crown colony in 1928, and in 1953 it was granted home rule. In 1950, Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan, the former black and the latter East Indian, created the colony's first political party, which was dedicated to gaining the colony's independence. The two leaders split in 1955, creating separate parties. The leftist Jagan and the more tyrannical Burnham were to dominate Guyanan politics for decades to come. On May 26, 1966, the country gained independence, and resumed its traditional name, Guyana.

Burnham and his People's National Congress ruled Guyana for 21 years, until Burnham's death in 1985. In 1992, Jagan's People's Progressive Party won a majority in the general election. Jagan, who had served as prime minister in the 1960s while Guyana was still a colony, became president.

The current president, former finance minister Bharrat Jagdeo, assumed the presidency in Aug. 1999.

Guyana's potential economic development was hurt in 2000 as border disputes with both Venezuela to the west and Suriname to the east heated up. Suriname and Guyana have been unable to resolve the border dispute in an oil-rich coastal area. Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez has revived a 19th-century claim to more than half of Guyana's territory.

Meanwhile, Guyana has announced plans to allow an American company to build a commercial rocket launch site in the area

In March 2001, Bharrat Jagdeo won a second term in elections that highlighted Guyana's racial and cultural split. An ethnic East Indian, Jagdeo could not be sworn in for two weeks, until a court dismissed a challenge seeking to nullify the results. Meanwhile, many Guyanese of African ancestry claimed widespread election fraud, and sporadic violence rocked the country, marring what had been a peaceful election process..