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French Guiana (French: Guyane française, officially Guyane) is an
overseas department of France, located on the northern coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil and Suriname. Its currency is the euro. The prefecture is Cayenne.

The addition of the adjective "French" comes from colonial times when three such colonies existed: British Guiana (now Guyana), Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) and French Guiana. The three are still often collectively referred to as the Guianas.
French Guiana was originally inhabited by a number of indigenous American people. It was settled by the French during the 17th century.
French Guiana is heavily dependent on France for subsidies, trade, and goods. The main industries are fishing , gold mining and timber.

There is very little manufacturing. Agriculture is largely undeveloped and is mainly confined to the area near the coast — sugar and bananas are two of the main cash crops grown. Tourism, especially eco-tourism, is growing.

French Guiana's population of 221,500 , most of whom live along the coast, is very ethnically diverse.
Estimates of the percentages of French Guiana ethnic composition vary, a situation compounded by the large numbers of immigrants .

Creoles (people of mixed African and French ancestry) are the largest ethnic group, though estimates vary as to the exact percentage, depending upon whether the large Haitian community is included as well. Generally the Creole population is judged to be about 60% to 70% of the total population if Haitians are included, and 30% to 50% without.

Roughly 14% of the population is of European ancestry. The vast majority of these are of French heritage, though there are also people of Dutch, British, Spanish and Portuguese ancestry .

The main Asian communities are the Hmong from Laos and Chinese . There are also smaller groups from various Caribbean islands, mainly Saint Lucia as well as Dominica. Other Asian groups include East Indians, Lebanese and Vietnamese.

The main groups living in the interior are the Maroons are racially black African, and Amerindians.

The Maroons, descendants of escaped African slaves, live primarily along the Maroni River. The main Maroon groups are the Saramaca, Aucan and the Boni (Aluku).
The main Amerindian groups are the Arawak, Carib, Emerillon, Galibi , Palikour, Wayampi and Wayana.

The dominant religion of French Guiana is Roman Catholicism; the Maroons and some Amerindian people maintain their own religions. The Hmong people are also mainly Catholic owing to the influence of Catholic missionaries who helped bring them to French Guiana.

The official language of French Guiana is French but a number of other local languages exist. The official regional languages are French Guiana creole, Amerindian languages (Arawak,Palikur, Kali'na, Wayana, Wayampi, Emerillon), Maroon dialects (Saramaka, Paramaccan, Boni, Djuka), as well as Hmong Njua. Other languages spoken by relatively large groups of the population are Portuguese, Hakka, Haitian Creole, Spanish and English.