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French Guiana

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by Paul Bacsich

For entities in French Guiana see Category:French Guiana


French Guiana (French: Guyane française, officially Guyane) is an overseas department (French: département d'outre-mer, or DOM) of France, located on the northern coast of South America. Like the other DOMs, French Guiana is also an overseas region of France, one of the 26 regions of France. Its currency is the euro. The addition of the adjective "French" comes from colonial times when three such colonies existed:

  1. British Guiana (now Guyana)
  2. Dutch Guiana (now Suriname)
  3. French Guiana.

The three are still often collectively referred to as The Guianas.


Its population is 220,000.

The capital is Cayenne.


University of the French West Indies and Guiana

(sourced from http://www.isep.org/students/Directory/member_site.asp?CSID=123&ID=271)

Note that there is a University of the French West Indies and Guiana (Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, UAG), the one university in the Academy of French Guiana. Between 1970 and 2000, five campuses were established on each of the three French Overseas Departments in the region: French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Martinique.

Today, UAG has a total of 12,000 students

There are two campuses in French Guiana (Cayenne and Kourou), two in Guadeloupe, and one in Martinique. The campuses are locally ruled by administrative bodies called pôles.

UAG enrolls about 500 international students from Africa, the Caribbean, Canada, Europe, and the United States.


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For OER policies and projects in French Guiana see French Guiana/OER