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Latest News from
Guyana

CaribNation Shows Featuring
Guyana

#102 Race Relations in Guyana,
Part 1, The People

#119 Race Relations in Guyana,
Part 2, Race and Politics

#120 Caribbean Politicians:
Desmond Hoyte

#125 Tribute to Cheddi Jagan

#134 Examining the Political
Climate of Guyana

#138 Caribbean Films/Filmmakers:
The Terror and the Times

#203 Caribbean Artist Series:
The Mighty Rebel

#206 Examining Caricome with
Secretary General Edwin Carrington

#301 Guyana 21 Project

#302 The State of Guyana: A
Conversation with Desmond Hoyte

#305 Caribbean Novelist/Authors:
Brenda DoHarris The Coloured
Girl in the Ring

#324 Caribbean Inventors:
Captain Fedna Stoll Inventor of the
Thermal Solar Dehydration Process

#329 Caribbean Authors: Maurice
St. Pierre Anatomy of Resistance:
Anti-Colonialism in Guyana
1823-1966

#333 Issues Affecting Communication
Students at the University of Guyana

#342 Caribbean Plays, The Promise
Land (Congo Story) performed by
The Caribbean Theatre Movement

National Flag of Guyana.

The national flag of is know as The Golden Arrowhead. Guyana's National Flag has FIVE symbolic colors -- GREEN represents the agricultural and forested nature of Guyana, WHITE symbolizes the rivers and water potential of the country, a GOLDEN arrow represents Guyana's mineral wealth, BLACK portrays the endurance that will sustain the forward thrust of the Guyanese people and RED represents the zeal and dynamic nature of nation-building which lies before the young and independent Guyana. Map of Guyana

Coat Of Arms.

ONE PEOPLE, ONE NATION, ONE DESTINY

So reads the banner displayed proudly at the base of Guyana's COAT OF ARMS.

The design consists of an Amerindian head-dress symbolizing the indigenous people of the country, two diamonds at the sides of the head-dress representing mining industry, a helmet (monarchial insignia), two jaguars holding a pick axe, sugar cane and a stalk of rice (symbolizing Guyana's sugar and rice industries), a shield decorated with the National Flower (Victoria Regia Lily), three blue wavy lines representing the waters of Guyana and the National Bird (Canje Pheasant).

The Land:
Guyana extends over an area of 83,000 square miles (214,969 sq. km) on the northeast shoulder of the South American continent. The Atlantic Ocean stretches for 270 miles along the coast of Guyana, but the country's major thrust is southward and inland, for a distance of 450 miles. Guyana borders on Venezuela in the west, Brazil in the south, and Suriname in the east.

There are three distinct geographical areas - the coastal belt, the forested and mountainous area, and the savannah zone.

The narrow coastal belt, a thin strip only 10 to 40 miles in width (just 4 percent of the total land area), is intensively cultivated and is home to 90 percent of the population. The area actually lies several feet below sea level at high tide, having been reclaimed in order to take advantage of the enormously rich alluvial soil deposited by ocean currents from the Amazon. This coastal belt is protected from the sea by an elaborate system of dams, walls, and groynes--a system that is reminiscent of the Netherlands itself, from which Guyana's first European settlers originated.

From the coastal zone, the land rises to a plateau of dense equatorial forest and swamp. Minerals are found in the area - the most valuable being bauxite, diamonds, gold and manganese. Further inland, the forest plateau rises to the savannah country of the southwest, called the Rupununi. The sparse population of this area is predominantly Amerindian.

Guyana is graced by many mighty rivers, the three most important being the Demerara (on which is found Georgetown), the Berbice (in the South), and the Essequibo, which with its many tributaries drains the greater part of the country.

History:
Guyana derives its name from an Amerindian word meaning "land of many waters." The area of the Guianas, bounded by the rivers of the Orinoco in the north and west, the Rio Negro in the west, the Amazon in the South, and of course the Atlantic Ocean in the East, is believed to have been settled before 900 AD by Warrau Indians, and later by the Arawak and Carib tribes. However, there is little archaeological evidence from these times of substantial settlements.

In 1595, prompted by the great riches brought back from South America by the Spanish, Sir Walter Raleigh embarked from London on an expedition in search of the fabled city of El Dorado. Raleigh's expedition penetrated hundreds of miles up the Orinoco River into the Guiana Highlands of present-day Venezuela, where he found some mineral specimens that contained gold. Upon his return, Raleigh published The Discoveries of the Large Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana, with a relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the Spaniards call El Dorado, a book that if not exactly truthful was certainly quite popular. The region quickly attracted the interest of the French, the English, and the Dutch, all of whom soon laid claim to the entire region. It was settled in separate areas by the three nations, and what is now Guyana occupies the area of the former Dutch colonies.

From 1781 onwards, British influence became increasingly evident, but it was not until 1814 that the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice were finally ceded to Britain, while the Courts of Policy and Combined Courts, the legislative and executive bodies created by the Dutch, remained in operation under British rule for another century. In 1831 the three colonies merged to become British Guiana.

The territory attained its independence on May 26, 1966 and became a Republican State on February 23, 1970.

Population:
The original inhabitants of the territory were Amerindians. However, to meet the labor needs of the plantation economy, slaves were brought in large numbers during the 18th and early 19th centuries from West Africa to work on the cotton and sugar plantations. When slavery was abolished in 1834 the former slaves refused to work for their former masters, even for wages. They left the plantations and established their own village communities. Immigrants were therefore brought in to work, first from Europe (Germany, Malta and Portugal), then China, and eventually in large numbers from India. Today the country's population reflects its immigrant history with Africans, East Indians, Chinese, Portuguese, Europeans, and Amerindians living side by side.