FRENCH GUIANA, or CAYENNE, is separated from Dutch Guiana on the west by the Maroni, from Brazil on the south by the Tumuc-Humac Mountains, and from the same country on the east by the Oyapock, although the French claim all the coastal districts as far south as the Amazons. The treaty boundary is the 'river of Vicente Pinzon,' the identity of which is the point in dispute; the French government, however, in 1856 expressed itself as willing to recognise the Araguary as the treaty stream. The north and north-east sides of the colony are washed by the Atlantic. Taking the Oyapock as the provisionally accepted boundary, the area of the colony is about 31,000 sq. m., whilst the length of coast-line is about 240 miles; the area, as officially given, is 46,850 sq. m. The coast is not so uniformly low and regular as in British and Dutch Guiana. Cayenne (q.v.), the capital of the colony, stands on a rocky promontory, and a little farther to the north-west lie the Safety Islands (Îles de Salut), behind which is the best roadstead in the colony. The undulating, heavily-timbered savannah region is crossed by one or two ranges of granite hills, nowhere exceeding 2600 feet in height. The culminating ridge, the Tumuc-Humac Mountains, only rises 1000 feet higher. The more important rivers, which all flow into the Atlantic, are the Maroni, Mana, Sinnamary, Kourou, Approuague, and Oyapock.
The commerce is almost nil, the only exports being cocoa and arnotto (roucou), each to the extent of about 750,000 lb. annually. A little coffee is grown. Gold is mined, however, and something like a value of £200,000 is annually exported; perhaps half as much again is smuggled out of the country. The total exports, exclusive of gold, have a value of some £20,000, and the imports of some £400,000. The colony costs the mother-country £250,000 a year. The population of the entire colony, exclusive of some mountain tribes, only amounted to 26,000—more than half in Cayenne—in 1895, and is slowly but surely diminishing; the marriages of people of European blood show great sterility, and infant mortality is large. The prevailing diseases of the swampy coast-lands are malarial fever, dysentery, anaemia, and yellow fever. From 1853 to 1864 an attempt was made to found penal colonies in French Guiana, all of which proved disastrous, partly owing to the unhealthiness of the climate, and partly to the harsh and ill-devised regulations in force for the management of the penitentiaries. The immigrant criminals now come (since 1864) exclusively from Africa (Arabs and negroes) and Asia (Annamites). Slavery was abolished in 1848.
Bibliography.—Of British Guiana: Hartsinck, Beschrijving van Guiana (1770); R. H. Schomburgk, Description of British Guiana (1840), Reizen in Guiana, 1835-39 (1841), and papers in Geog. Journ. (1836-44); Richard Schomburgk, Reizen in Britisch-Guiana, 1840-44 (1848); Dalton, History of British Guiana (1855); C. B. Brown and J. G. Sawkins, Geological Survey of Brit. Gu. (1875); Boddani-Whetham, Roraima and Brit. Gu. (1879); Im Thurn, Among the Indians of Gu. (1883); Bronkhurst, Brit. Gu. (1883); Netscher, Geschiedenis van Essequibo, Demerary, en Berbice (1888); Rodway, The History of British Guiana (3 vols. Georgetown, 1891-94), and his Handbook of British Guiana (1893). Of Dutch Guiana: Palgrave, Dutch Gu. (1876); and Kappler, Surinam (1887). Of French Guiana: Crevaux, in Bull. Soc. Géog. (1878); Nibaut, Gu. Française (1882); works on the French colonies by Vignon (1885), Rambaud (1886), Lanessan (1886), Henrique (6 vols. 1889-90), Gaffarelli (1893), and Petit (1894); Coudreau, in Bull. Soc. Géog. de l'Est (1886-87) and Rev. de Géog. (1888). See also Annals of Guiana (1888), by Rodway and Watt; and Kuart van Guiana, by W. L. Loth (Amsterdam, 1880).