Facts about Guyana
Guyana signed the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1977.
Guyana plays international cricket as a part of the West Indies cricket team, and the Guyana team plays first-class cricket against other nations of the Caribbean.
Upon his death in 1985, he was succeeded by Hugh Desmond Hoyte, who realigned Guyana with the United States and instituted economic reforms to encourage investment.
Burnham became the first prime minister and moved Guyana toward socialism, including nationalizing foreign companies that dominated the bauxite and sugar industries.
Approximately 8,000 species of plants occur in Guyana, half of which are found nowhere else.
On November 15, 2007, a contingent of Venezuelan armed forces entered Guyana’s territory and destroyed two dredgers at a gold mine.
The main economic activities in Guyana are agriculture (producing rice and sugar), bauxite mining, gold mining, timber, shrimp fishing, and minerals.
Guyana has one of the highest rates of biodiversity in the world, with 1,168 vertebrate species and 800 bird species.
More than 80 percent of Guyana is still covered by forests, ranging from dry evergreen and seasonal forests to montane and lowland evergreen rainforests.
Guyana's extremely high debt burden to foreign creditors has meant limited availability of foreign exchange and reduced capacity to import necessary raw materials, spare parts, and equipment, thereby further reducing production.
Guyana's tropical climate, unique geology, and relatively pristine ecosystems support extensive natural habitats with high levels of endemism.
Guyana became aligned with the Soviet Union, and Burnham restricted press freedom and revised the constitution to stay in power.
Most of this was driven by new hotel construction in the buildup to Guyana’s hosting of the Cricket World Cup in March 2007.
Most of the balata bleeding in Guyana took place in the foothills of the Kanuku Mountains in the Rupununi.
Guyana's main mountains are in the south, including Mount Ayanganna (6,699 ft; 2,042 m) and Mount Roraima (9,301 ft; 2,835 m)—the highest mountain in Guyana on the Brazil-Guyana-Venezuela border, part of the Pakaraima range in the west.
When the first Europeans arrived in the area around 1500, Guyana was inhabited by the Arawak and Carib tribes of American Indians.
Guyana, along with Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil, is one of the four non-Hispanic nations in South America.
Guyana is divided into ten regions, each headed by a chairman who presides over a regional democratic council.
The British and Guyanese rejected this renewed claim, and efforts by all the parties to resolve the matter on the eve of Guyana's independence in 1966 failed.
The major sports in Guyana are cricket (Guyana is part of the West Indies for international cricket purposes), softball cricket (beach cricket), and football.
Guyana is an Amerindian word meaning "Land of many waters."
A new flag was adopted and the official name of the country changed to "Republic of the Union of Myanmar."
Guyana is a member of CONCACAF, the international football federation for North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Guyana, officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is the only English-speaking country in South America.
The major religions in Guyana include Christianity (41.6 percent), Hinduism (28.8 percent), Islam (7.3 percent), Rastafarian (0.5 percent), and Bahб'н (0.1 percent), with the remainder being of no faith or indigenous religions.
The population of Guyana is racially and ethnically heterogeneous, composed chiefly of the descendants of immigrants who came to the country either as slaves or as indentured laborers.
Guyana protested the Venezuelan action and is seeking a diplomatic resolution of the issue.
Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom, in 1966, and became a republic on February 23, 1970, though remaining a member of the Commonwealth.
Rusal later announced that it was also interested in buying into Guyana's other big bauxite producer, Omai.
Guyana played host to international cricket matches as part of the 2007 Cricket World Cup.
The dispute with Suriname was arbitrated by the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea, and a ruling in favor of Guyana was announced in September 2007.
Guyana's educational system, which at one time was considered among the best in the Caribbean, deteriorated in the 1980s because of the emigration of highly educated citizens and the lack of appropriate funding.
Guyana lies north of the equator, in the tropics, and is located on the Atlantic Ocean.
Guyana exhibits two of the World Wildlife Fund's Global 200 ecoregions most crucial to the conservation of global biodiversity and is home to several endemic species, including the tropical hardwood Greenheart (Chlorocardium rodiei).
Guyana shares similar interests with the islands in the West Indies, such as food, festive events, music, sports, and so on.