50 Fun Facts About French Guiana

France's longest land border runs for about 730 kilometres alongside which country?

Brazil shares a 730-kilometre frontier with French Guiana, which is legally part of France. Spain comes second, even though its border is the longest France has in Europe.

Which currency is official in French Guiana, even though it lies on the South American mainland?

Euro notes are legal tender because French Guiana is fully part of France. The territory even appears in its own small box beneath the map printed on the banknotes.

Which famous observatory lifted off from a launch pad in French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021?

The James Webb Space Telescope left Earth from the Guiana Space Centre on 25 December 2021. The launch was so precise that the fuel it saved may double the telescope's working life.

Which tiny islet off French Guiana gave its name to a notorious penal colony that France ran until 1953?

Devil's Island itself was kept for political prisoners, while most convicts were held on neighbouring islands or in mainland camps. The vast majority of those shipped out never returned to France.

Which hot red chili pepper shares its name with the capital city of French Guiana?

Cayenne is both a fiery pepper and the capital and largest city of French Guiana. French colonists founded the town in 1643, and about half the territory's people now live in or around it.

Which sea turtle, the largest of all living turtles, nests in huge numbers in French Guiana?

Leatherback turtles can weigh 500 kilograms, and the Amana Nature Reserve in French Guiana is one of their largest nesting sites in the world. Females come ashore to breed only every two to three years.

Rockets leaving French Guiana get an extra push from Earth's spin by launching near which line?

The Equator is only about 500 kilometres south of the launch pads. Rockets heading east borrow speed from Earth's rotation there, so they need less energy to reach orbit.

Which 1969 bestseller by Henri Charrière recounts escapes from French Guiana's penal colony?

Papillon sold more than 1.5 million copies in France alone and reached cinemas four years later. Researchers now believe much of the story was borrowed from other inmates.

Convicts in French Guiana often caught which insects to sell to scientists and collectors abroad?

Butterflies from the rainforest fetched good prices on the international market. With long sentences and little hope of paid work, convicts netted them for both science and hobby collections.

Which tarantula of French Guiana and its neighbours is the heaviest spider in the world?

The Goliath birdeater can weigh 175 grams, with a body up to 13 centimetres long. Only the giant huntsman spider beats it for leg span.

Which coastal town in French Guiana sits beside the launch pads of the Guiana Space Centre?

Kourou had fewer than 25,000 residents in 2023, yet the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency lies just outside it. Four hills ring the town at the mouth of its river.

Which country, once known as Dutch Guiana, faces French Guiana across the Maroni River?

Suriname lies on the west bank, and no bridge spans the river, so travellers cross by ferry or canoe. Part of the border farther upstream is still disputed between the two sides.

Which river, bridged in 2011 to give French Guiana its first road link abroad, forms its eastern border?

The Oyapock bridge was finished in 2011 but only opened to the public in March 2017. Unpaid construction bills and unstaffed customs posts kept it closed for more than five years.

Which rocket family, named after a princess of Greek myth, has launched from French Guiana since 1979?

Ariane is the French spelling of Ariadne, the Cretan princess who helped Theseus escape the labyrinth. The family's first flight succeeded on Christmas Eve 1979.

Which Russian rocket flew 27 times from French Guiana until the 2022 invasion of Ukraine?

Soyuz rockets had to be adapted to the tropical climate before their first liftoff from the jungle pad in 2011. All but one of the missions flown from there succeeded.

France built its spaceport in French Guiana after losing a rocket base in which newly independent country?

Algeria became independent in 1962, which cost France its launch site at Hammaguir in the Sahara. French Guiana was chosen two years later, partly for its open sea to the east and north.

Which French president decided in 1964 to build a space base in French Guiana?

Charles de Gaulle wanted the base to replace a lost desert launch site and to stimulate the local economy. The first rockets fired from it were small Véronique research rockets.

Which famous French military corps keeps a regiment in French Guiana to guard the spaceport?

The Foreign Legion has stationed its 3rd Infantry Regiment beside the launch site since 1973. The regiment also runs a jungle training centre where foreign troops come to learn forest combat.

Firefighters from which French city's brigade are posted to protect the Guiana Space Centre?

Paris has a fire brigade that is a unit of the French Army, so its firefighters are soldiers. Besides the city itself, they protect a few sites of national importance, including the launch pads.

Which metal draws thousands of illegal miners, known as garimpeiros, into French Guiana's rainforest?

Gold lures an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 undocumented miners into the interior. French police and soldiers have mounted operations against their hidden camps since 2003.

Which French Guiana-born colonial governor became the first Black person buried in the Panthéon?

Félix Éboué, the grandson of slaves, governed Chad in 1940 and swung it behind the Free French, giving the movement a territorial base. French Guiana's main airport now carries his name.

Which poet from French Guiana founded the Négritude movement alongside Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor?

Léon Damas met Césaire at secondary school, and in 1935 the three friends published a student review that laid the foundation of the movement. It rejected the political, social and moral domination of the West.

Which justice minister born in French Guiana brought in the 2013 law legalising same-sex marriage?

Christiane Taubira also drove a 2001 law that recognised the Atlantic slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity. She grew up as one of 11 children raised by a single mother.

Which French singer, born in French Guiana in 1917, is credited with helping to inspire bossa nova?

Henri Salvador released the song Dans mon île in 1957, and it is thought to have influenced the creators of the style. He was just as famous for his rich, catchy laugh, a running joke in his comic songs.

Which winger born in French Guiana won the 2012 Champions League with Chelsea and played in a World Cup final?

Florent Malouda played for France in the 2006 final and, in 2017, also turned out for the team of his home region. Before moving to London he won four straight league titles with Lyon.

Which striker born in French Guiana starred for West Bromwich Albion and won five caps for England?

Cyrille Regis was born in Maripasoula, the largest commune in France by area, and moved to England as a small child. He won his only major trophy, the 1987 FA Cup, with Coventry City.

Which mosquito-borne disease, alongside yellow fever, gave French Guiana a deadly reputation until the 1950s?

Malaria and yellow fever kept the population stagnant throughout the penal colony era. Eradication campaigns began in 1949, and the number of residents has since grown more than tenfold.

Which masked female character rules Carnival in French Guiana and picks her own dance partners?

Touloulou dancers cover every inch of skin and even disguise their voices so that nobody can recognise them. At the masked balls it is they who invite the men to dance, and the men may not refuse.

French Guiana's Carnival, considered the world's longest, begins right after which Christian feast?

Epiphany opens a season of weekend parades and masked balls that lasts until Ash Wednesday. A mythical king called Vaval reigns over the festivities and dies on the final day.

Which palm fruit gives its name to the rich broth that families in French Guiana cook at Easter?

Awara pulp is simmered for hours with smoked fish, salted meats, chicken and vegetables. A local proverb says that anyone who eats the stew will one day return to French Guiana.

Which ruler, fresh from an 1851 coup, ordered convicts shipped to a new penal colony in French Guiana?

Napoleon III wanted to close the rotting prison hulks moored in French harbours, which the navy found costly to guard. The first convicts reached the colony in 1852.

Which European power captured French Guiana in 1809 with British naval help and held it until 1817?

Portugal attacked at Britain's request, because the Royal Navy could spare only a single sloop for the invasion. The colony fell within days and was not handed back for eight years.

Migrants reached French Guiana after the deadly 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on which Caribbean island?

Martinique lost the city of Saint-Pierre, where almost everyone, about 28,000 people, died in the eruption. Many islanders then left to start again on the South American mainland.

Which refugee people from Laos were resettled in French Guiana and now farm around the village of Cacao?

Hmong families were settled there because the living and working conditions resembled those of their homeland. Their village now holds a Sunday market and a New Year festival lasting three or four days.

What are the descendants of escaped African slaves, such as the Aluku of French Guiana, generally called?

Maroons such as the Aluku descend from people who fled Dutch plantations in the late 1600s and early 1700s. They built free villages in the rainforest and still speak their own creole languages.

The name Guiana, shared by French Guiana and its neighbours, comes from an indigenous word said to mean what?

Land of many waters suits a region laced with rivers, where boats are often the only way inland. Five colonial Guianas once lined this coast, each held by a different European power.

Which two-letter internet country code belongs to French Guiana, even though most websites there use .fr?

.gf matches the initials of Guyane française, the territory's name in French. In practice the code is rarely seen, because local sites generally prefer the domain used in the rest of France.

A popular flag of French Guiana is split diagonally into green and yellow around which central emblem?

A red star sits at the centre of the design, which a trade union created in 1967. Its green half stands for the forests, yet the only official flag is still the French tricolour.

Guiana Amazonian Park, the largest national park in France, is reached only by plane or which river boat?

Pirogue canoes travel up the two border rivers because no road reaches the park. Created in 2007, it protects rainforest covering 41 percent of French Guiana.

Which reptile, the largest predator of the Amazon basin, lives in the Kaw marshes of French Guiana?

The black caiman can grow beyond five metres and shares the reserve with manatees, giant otters and jaguars. The Kaw marshes form the largest wetland in France.

Which army captain, wrongly convicted of treason in 1894, was shipped to a prison off French Guiana?

Alfred Dreyfus was pardoned in 1899 and fully cleared in 1906, after evidence showed that a fellow officer was the real spy. The novelist Émile Zola was among his loudest defenders.

Which star played a convict escaping French Guiana opposite Dustin Hoffman in a 1973 film?

Steve McQueen took the title role, with Hoffman as a forger named Louis Dega. Shot in remote locations, the film cost 12 million dollars but earned more than twice that in its first year.

In prisoner slang, French Guiana's penal colony was the dry version of which execution device?

Guillotine sèche, or dry guillotine, was the convicts' own name for a place most of them never left. A former prisoner, René Belbenoît, made the phrase the title of his 1938 memoir.

Which small rocket, led by Italy and named after a bright star, first flew from French Guiana in 2012?

Vega takes its name from the brightest star in the constellation Lyra. Italy paid 65 percent of the programme's cost, with France, Spain and several other countries sharing the rest.

Which neutral country arbitrated the jungle border dispute between French Guiana and its giant neighbour?

Switzerland resolved the quarrel largely against France. While it lasted, adventurers had proclaimed a short-lived, pro-French independent state in the disputed jungle.

Maripasoula in French Guiana, the largest commune in France, is slightly bigger than which country?

Kuwait is a little smaller than the commune's 18,360 square kilometres. Maripasoula has no road link and can be reached only by air or by boat along the river.

Which faith dominates French Guiana, even among refugees from Laos resettled with missionaries' help?

Catholicism is the dominant religion, and the whole territory forms a single diocese. Several peoples of the interior nevertheless keep religions of their own.

French Guiana is the second-largest region of France, just behind which mainland region centred on Bordeaux?

Nouvelle-Aquitaine covers 84,061 square kilometres, only a whisker more than French Guiana. The overseas territory is about one-seventh the size of European France.

Which lawyer raised in French Guiana, the grandson of a slave, led France's upper house of parliament from 1947 to 1968?

Gaston Monnerville first presided over the Council of the Republic, then in 1958 became the first President of the Senate under the Fifth Republic. He had studied law in Toulouse.

Which goalkeeper born in French Guiana won Serie A with AC Milan in his first season at the club?

Mike Maignan joined Milan in 2021 and was named the league's best goalkeeper as the club took the title. He was born to a Guadeloupean father and a Haitian mother.