2206 FRANCE (French Guiana) - Îles du Salut

The Îles du Salut (Islands of Salvation), so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland, are a group of small islands about 11 km off the coast of French Guiana in the Atlantic Ocean. Although closer to Kourou, they are part of Cayenne commune. Between 1852 and 1953 the islands were part of a notorious penal colony, for only the worst criminals of France. Nowadays the islands are a popular tourist destination.

2073 FRANCE (French Guiana) - Kourou

Kourou: 1. ? 2. The Dreyfus Tower on
the Pointe des Roches; 3. Ariane 5.

Located at 60km northwest of Cayenne, at the mouth of the river with the same name and ringed by four hills, Kourou has three lakes within its limits, the riverbank and all points inland consisting mostly of mangrove and dense tropical rainforest. It was formerly the home of the Kourou Prison, which was one of the main prisons in French Guiana, and which was also a part of the notorious Devil's Island Prison System.

1846 FRANCE (French Guiana) - Hmong young girls from Cacao

Even if French Guiana has only 250,000 inhabitants, its ethnic diversity is outstanding. The main Asian communities are the Chinese and Hmong people from Laos. The Hmong are an ethnic group from the mountainous regions of  China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. In Laos, many Hmong fought against the invading North Vietnamese Army and the Communist Pathet Lao in the Kingdom of Laos during the Vietnam War. Following Communist victory in 1975, many Hmong were killed or were send in labor camps, so those who could, fled to Thailand or resettled in Western countries, including French Guiana.

1443 FRANCE (French Guiana) - The map of French Guiana

French Guiana is the largest overseas department and region of France, located on the north Atlantic coast of South America, between Brazil and Suriname. Historically speaking, The Guianas (Las Guayanas in spanish) refers to a region in South America, north of the Amazon River and east of the Orinoco River, which includes French Guiana, Guyana (former British Guiana), Suriname (former Dutch Guiana), the Guayana Region in Venezuela (former Spanish Guyana), and Brazilian State of Amapá (former Portuguese Guiana). It consists of two main geographical regions: a coastal strip where the majority of the people live, and dense, near-inaccessible rainforest which gradually rises to the modest peaks of the Tumuc-Humac mountains along the Brazilian frontier.