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Suriname (country), republic of northeastern South America, bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by French Guiana, on the south by Brazil, and on the west by Guyana. Before 1975 Suriname was a dependency of The Netherlands and was called Dutch Guiana or Netherlands Guiana. Also called Surinam, the country has an area of 163,265 sq km (63,037 sq mi). The capital and only major urban area is Paramaribo.

English, French, and Dutch traders first arrived in Suriname in the mid-17th century. The Dutch gained control of the colony later in the century and began gradually displacing the indigenous people. Using slave labor, the Dutch cultivated sugarcane, which became the major source of income, and large agricultural estates developed. A Dutch governor ruled the colony. In 1949 citizens were allowed to elect a parliament to pass legislation on domestic matters, but the Dutch government continued to control defense and foreign affairs. Shortly after independence in 1975, a military coup overthrew Suriname�s democratically elected government. Although democracy was restored in 1987, the military continued to hold the ultimate power in the country through the 1990s.

Because of its long history as an agricultural colony, Suriname has a diverse population representing ethnic groups from four major continents. Very few of the indigenous groups who originally inhabited the area remain. Most people are descendants of African slaves and Asian indentured servants (from India, Indonesia, and China) who were brought to the colony to work as agricultural workers. Although agriculture long formed the backbone of the Suriname economy, the mining of bauxite, an aluminum ore, generated the greatest amount of national income in the late 20th century.

Physiographically, Suriname consists of a swampy coastal plain ranging up to 80 km (50 mi) in width; a central plateau region containing broad savannas, tracts of dunes, and forested areas; and to the south, a densely forested mountainous region. The numerous streams include the Maroni (Dutch Marowijne) River, delineating part of the French Guiana border; the Courantyne (Dutch Corantijn) River, delineating the Guyana border; and the Coppename, Saramacca, and Suriname rivers. The climate is tropical, with annual temperatures between 23� and 32�C (73� and 90�F). More than 2,000 mm (80 in) of rain falls per year in coastal areas, diminishing to 1,500 mm (60 in) in inland areas. Rainfall is heaviest from December to April, when floods often occur. Suriname�s chief resources are bauxite, iron ore, copper, nickel, and extensive forests.

The total population of Suriname (2001 estimate) is 433,998, giving a population density of 3 persons per sq km (7 per sq mi). Paramaribo (population, 1997 estimate, 289,000) is the country�s capital, largest city, and chief seaport. The main ethnic groups are Asian Indians (Hindus), who make up about 37 percent of the population, and Creoles, a people descended from African slaves or persons of mixed African and European descent, who make up about 31 percent of the population. There are also sizable communities of Indonesians (15 percent); Maroons, descendants of blacks who escaped slavery long ago by moving to the interior (10 percent); Native Americans, descendants of indigenous tribes (3 percent); Chinese (2 percent); and Europeans (1 percent). Many Surinamers have emigrated to The Netherlands. The official language is Dutch; most people also speak Sranang Tongo (Taki-Taki), a local language that includes elements of several other languages. The main religions are Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Some 87,882 students were enrolled in primary schools, and another 18,165 attended secondary and teacher-training schools in the 1993-94 school year. The University of Suriname (1968) is in Paramaribo.

The mining and processing of bauxite (into alumina and aluminum) is the base of the economy. Additional industries include lumbering and plywood manufacturing and the manufacture of molasses and rum. Agriculture is confined mainly to the coastal plains area and the river valleys and has great potential for expansion. Rice is the chief crop. Other important crops include cacao, coffee, citrus fruits, bananas, and sugarcane. Shrimp fishing is expanding along the coast. In 1999 exports totaled $472 million; exports are typically predominated by alumina, aluminum, and bauxite. Imports totaled $445 million; imports usually consist mostly of fuels and industrial goods. Principal purchasers of Suriname�s exports are Norway, The Netherlands, the United States, Japan, Brazil, and the United Kingdom; chief sources of imports are the United States, The Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, Japan, and Brazil. In 1995 Suriname joined in forming the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), a free-trade organization. The organization�s other members include 12 nations bordering on or in the Caribbean and the members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). The unit of currency is the Suriname guilder (401 guilders equal U.S.$1; 1998 average).

Transportation facilities in Suriname are concentrated in the northern part of the country. The nation has 4,470 km (2,778 mi) of roads, very few of which are improved, and 166 km (103 mi) of operated railroad track. Transport on Suriname�s roughly 1,200 km (750 mi) of inland rivers and canals is very important. Paramaribo and Nieuw Nickerie are the chief seaports, and Moengo, Paranam, and Smalkalden are important ports for shipping bauxite. Suriname�s principal airport is at Zanderij; Suriname Airways is the national airline. The country has several radio stations and a television service. There were 728 radio receivers, 153 television sets, and 171 telephone mainlines for every 1,000 inhabitants in 1997.

Until 1980 Suriname was governed under a constitution adopted in 1975. The government was headed by a popularly elected president, a council of ministers, and a unicameral parliament. Following a coup d�état in 1980, the constitution was suspended, parliament was dissolved, and the Policy Center, a council dominated by the military, began ruling by decree. A new constitution, adopted by referendum in 1987, established a 51-member National Assembly with the power to select the president. The president is elected to a five-year term.

Before the advent of Europeans, the territory that is now Suriname was inhabited by tribes of Arawak, Carib, and Warrau Native Americans. Most Native Americans lived in small, independent villages in which kinship ties formed the basis of community. They lived by hunting and farming, mainly of root crops such as cassava (manioc). The coastal peoples spoke Arawakan languages; those in the interior spoke Cariban languages.

Dutch, French, and English traders established stations along the coast of Suriname in the late 16th century. English traders began to colonize the region during the first half of the 17th century. The first permanent European settlement was a plantation colony established in 1650 on the Suriname River by a British group. A fleet of the Dutch West India Company later captured this colony. With the Treaty of Breda in 1667, the English ceded their part of the colony to The Netherlands in exchange for New Amsterdam (later New York City), and Suriname was officially brought under Dutch rule. Thereafter, The Netherlands ruled Suriname as a colony, except during two brief wartime periods, from 1795 to 1802 and from 1804 to 1816, when the British retook it.

Plantation agriculture was the initial basis of the colony�s economy. The Dutch established many plantations and imported large numbers of Africans to work as slaves. The chief crop was sugarcane, but there were also plantations that grew coffee, cacao, indigo, cotton, food crops, and timber trees. The plantation economy expanded continuously until about 1785. In that year, there were 591 plantations, of which 452 grew sugar and other commercial crops and 139 grew food crops and timber. In the last years of the 18th century, however, agricultural production declined. By 1860 only 87 sugar estates were left, and by 1940 there were only 4.

As in other slaveholding colonies that grew sugar, Suriname�s society was divided into three levels. At the top was a small European elite. It consisted mainly of government officials, merchants, a very small number of plantation owners who resided on their holdings, and administrators who managed plantations for absentee owners. A majority of these Europeans were Dutch, although some were also German, French, or English. Beneath this elite was a middle level of free citizens. This racially diverse group included people of European descent born in Suriname, the offspring of European men and slave women, and slaves who had been given their freedom or had been able to buy it. At the bottom of the social scale were the slaves, who made up a large majority of the population.

Slavery in Suriname was noted for its severity. Slaves were a form of property, and as such they had no legal rights. Under colonial laws, the masters had the greatest possible authority; still, slave escapes were a constant problem for the planters. Runaway slaves went up the rivers beyond the rapids to remote areas, and they established independent villages in isolated regions of the rain forests. These escaped slaves maintained their independence despite numerous attempts by the colonial militia to recapture them. Their descendents still inhabited the region at the end of the 20th century.

During the early 19th century, European sentiment increasingly favored abolishing slavery. After the English and French enacted laws freeing the slaves in their colonies in the mid-1800s, the Dutch began preparing to free the slaves in their colonies. The planters in Suriname feared that the slaves, once emancipated, would refuse plantation work. It was therefore decided to require the slaves to work on the plantations at minimum wages for a ten-year �period of state supervision� following emancipation. After emancipation in 1863, however, the newly freed slaves faced the necessity of earning wages to support themselves. They began migrating toward the city of Paramaribo, where better-paying jobs and superior educational opportunities were available.

To replenish the plantation labor supply, laborers were imported from Asia. Between 1853 and 1873, 2,502 Chinese were brought into the colony; between 1873 and 1922, 34,024 workers from the Indian subcontinent were brought in; and between 1891 and 1939, 32,965 Indonesians were brought in. These immigrants came as indentured workers who signed contracts binding them to jobs in the colony for a specified number of years. The vast majority worked as agricultural laborers. By the end of the 20th century, the descendants of these people made up a majority of Suriname�s population. World War II (1939-1945) brought many new foreigners, particularly U.S. soldiers, into the colony; it also brought foreign capital, especially for U.S. military construction.

For most of the colonial period, a Dutch-appointed governor administered Suriname, assisted by two courts. These courts were staffed by Suriname residents who were appointed by the Dutch from among nominees elected by the colony�s voters. In 1866 a parliament replaced the courts, but the governor could veto its acts. The Dutch government gradually eased the strict property and educational qualifications for voting, so that parliament was dominated first by plantation owners, and then, after 1900, by upper- and middle-class citizens. However, the number of eligible voters never exceeded 2 percent of the population until 1949, when the vote was extended to all adults.

In 1922 Suriname became an integral part of The Netherlands, and in 1954 a new constitution elevated its status to that of a coequal member of the kingdom. This system created three equal members of the kingdom of The Netherlands: The Netherlands; the Netherlands Antilles, consisting of the Dutch-controlled islands of the Caribbean; and Suriname. Under the new constitution, the Dutch government controlled defense and foreign affairs and appointed a governor for Suriname, but the Surinamese elected a parliament that controlled domestic matters.

A coalition of political parties advocating total independence from The Netherlands won election in 1973 and formed a government under Prime Minister Henck Arron. The government began independence talks with the Dutch government. On November 25, 1975, the Dutch Parliament granted Suriname its independence. However, about 40,000 people chose to retain Dutch citizenship and emigrated from Suriname to The Netherlands. In the new republic�s first elections in 1977, Arron retained his majority.

A military coup overthrew Arron in February 1980. A group of army officers led by Lieutenant Colonel Désiré (�Dési�) Bouterse formed the National Military Council (NMR). By February 1982 it had dissolved the parliament and suspended the constitution. It also ousted the last civilian official, President Henck Chin A Sen, who fled to The Netherlands, as did thousands of other Surinamese. Bouterse emerged as the nation�s leader and ruled by decree as commander in chief of the army. The government foiled coup attempts in 1980 and 1981, and it brutally suppressed a 1982 effort to organize a democratic opposition movement. In 1982 the army tortured and killed 15 leading citizens, prompting the Dutch to cut off aid to the country. Bending to domestic and external pressure, the NMR allowed a new parliament, the National Assembly, to form in 1985. A ban on political parties was lifted, and Arron joined the NMR, now renamed the Supreme Council.

A guerrilla war broke out in 1986, disrupting the nation�s economy. The insurgents, known as the Surinamese Liberation Army, aimed to restore the constitutional state. Within months they caused the shutdown of the principal bauxite mines and refineries. Meanwhile, a new constitution was drafted and approved by 93 percent of the electorate in September 1987.

The 1987 constitution restored civilian government. Elections in November gave only 2 of 51 assembly seats to Bouterse�s party, while the multiethnic Front for Democracy and Development won 40. In January 1988 the National Assembly elected Ramsewak Shankar, a former agriculture minister, as president, and Arron became vice president. The Dutch resumed aid in 1988, promising $721 million over the course of seven to eight years. Bauxite mining resumed.

Despite the return to constitutional rule, Bouterse retained power through his control of the military. He ousted the Shankar government in December 1990. New legislative elections were held in May 1991, and the New Front for Democracy and Development, a coalition of several political parties, won a majority of seats. In September Ronald Venetiaan, a former education minister and leader of the New Front coalition, was chosen as president. Venetiaan�s coalition was narrowly defeated in elections in 1996. He was succeeded by Jules Wijdenbosch, the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party.

A succession of economic problems in 1998 and 1999, including high inflation, unpaid government salaries, and rising foreign debt, undermined support for Wijdenbosch�s government. A national strike in May 1999 coupled with mass street protests brought the country to a virtual standstill. Facing mounting resentment, Wijdenbosch scheduled legislative elections a year early, in May 2000. Venetiaan�s New Front coalition emerged with the largest share of seats, and in August 2000 Venetiaan was appointed president. The main opposition in the National Assembly was the Millennium Combination, a coalition headed by Bouterse.