Overview

The Cooperative Republic of Guyana—formerly the colony of British Guiana—is a country the size of its former colonial master, Great Britain, and slightly bigger than the state of Kansas. As one of many Caribbean nations, Guyana is often assumed to be an island rather than a continental country. Larger than the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean put together, it sprawls across 83,000 square miles of the northeastern coast of South America, bounded on the west by Venezuela, on the southwest by Brazil, and on the east by Suriname. Its northern boundary consists of 250 miles of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. Of the country's total area, 86 percent is forest, 10.5 percent is savannah grassland, and 3.5 percent is the coastal belt on which nearly all its people live.

Guyana has a population of about three-quarters of a million people; 50 percent are of East Indian descent and about...