Suriname
Suriname is in South America on the coast just north of Brazil between Guyana and French Guiana. It is the smallest independent country in South America, and it was once called Dutch Guiana or Nederlands Guiana (Netherlands Guyana). Suriname is shown in red in the map below.
You can see in the above map that the whole country lies between 2 and 6 degrees north of the equator. In addition, it is jungle territory, so the weather is hot and humid. For our friends and family from central Arkansas, the weather is like summertime all year. It only has rainy and dry seasons. Most of the population (~90%) lives in the northern edge where the cities are. Paramaribo, the capitol city holds a very large portion of the population. The southern part is jungle (rain forest) and is sparsely inhabited.
The cities are very mixed. You very rarely see any native South American people. You mainly see Hindustani (from India), Chinese, Javanese (from Indonesia), African descent (people coming from the jungle), and the occasional Dutch or American.
Because of the many people groups represented, the languages follow. The main language is Dutch due to the Dutch history of the country. Sranan Tango is a creole language, originally spoken by the creole people, is the second most popular language and is spoken very commonly in the cities. The language of the maroons (Africans from the jungle) has a lot in common with Sranan Tango as does the language of the natives. Hindi is widely spoken too because of the Hindustani population. Javanese is, of course, spoken by the Javanese. A few forms of Chinese are used by the Chinese population. English is taught in the schools in the city for business purposes. Because of the surrounding countries, Portuguese and Spanish are sometimes heard.
Because of the many cultural influences, it is no surprise that many religions are present as well. Hinduism, Islam, animism, Catholicism, and Christianity are represented. There is even a synagogue in Paramaribo. The flag of former Dutch Guyana represents the country well. Below that is the current Suriname flag.
Current Suriname Flag
If you want to read more about our people group, the Saramaccans, click on the link to the right.
