Dutch colonisation of the Guianas Marajó island of the Amazon river delta in the southeast. Although the Dutch colony of Surinam has always been officially known as Surinam or Suriname, in both Dutch and English, the colony was often unofficially and semi-officially referred to as Dutch Guiana (Dutch: "Nederlands Guiana") in the 19th and 20th century, in an analogy to British Guiana and French Guiana. Using this term for Suriname is problematic, however, as historically Suriname was only one of many Dutch colonies in the Guianas, others being Berbice, Essequibo, Demerara, and Pomeroon, which after being taken over by the United Kingdom in 1814, were
French Guiana of its 281,612 inhabitants in 2018 lived in the metropolitan area of Cayenne, its capital. Since December 2015 both the region and the department have been ruled by a single assembly within the framework of a new territorial collectivity, the French Guiana Territorial Collectivity (). This assembly, the French Guiana Assembly (), has replaced the former regional council and departmental council, which were both disbanded. The French Guiana Assembly is in charge of regional and departmental government. Its president is Rodolphe Alexandre. Before European contact, the territory was originally inhabited by Native Americans, most speaking the Arawak language, of the