Kourou in French Guiana

15 September 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Kourou beach © Arria Belli/cc-by-sa-3.0

Kourou beach © Arria Belli/cc-by-sa-3.0

Kourou is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It is an administrative district in French Guiana and the main town there. The town had a population of 24,805 inhabitants at the 2020 census.   read more…

French Guiana

30 May 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

île Royale Harbor and St Joseph island © Tylda/cc-by-sa-3.0

île Royale Harbor and St Joseph island © Tylda/cc-by-sa-3.0

French Guiana is an overseas department and region of France, on the north Atlantic coast of South America. It borders Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west. Its 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi) area has a very low population density of only 3 inhabitants per km2, with half of its 250,000 inhabitants living in the metropolitan area of Cayenne, its capital. By land area, it is by far the largest overseas region of France. As an overseas region, it is inside the European Union, and its official currency is the Euro. The addition of the adjective “French” in English comes from colonial times when five such colonies existed (The Guianas), namely from west to east: Spanish Guiana (now Guayana Region in Venezuela), British Guiana (now Guyana), Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), French Guiana, and Portuguese Guiana (now Amapá, a state in far northern Brazil). French Guiana and the two larger countries to the north and west, Guyana and Suriname, are still often collectively referred to as the Guianas and comprise one large shield landmass.   read more…

La Réunion in the Indian Ocean

28 January 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  7 minutes

Saint-Denis © B.navez/cc-by-sa-3.0

Saint-Denis © B.navez/cc-by-sa-3.0

Réunion (previously Île Bourbon and Île Bonaparte) is a French island with a population of 84,000 inhabitants. The island is located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) southwest of Mauritius, the nearest island. Réunion, Mauritius and Rodrigues form the Mascarene Islands. The collective title is derived from the Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, who first visited them in the early sixteenth century. Bourbon vanilla got its name from the long-term main supplier of vanilla, Île Bourbon/Réunion.   read more…

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