Suriname (pronounced /ˈsʊɹɪnɑm/), Dutch: Suriname; Sarnami: शर्नम् Sarnam, Sranan Tongo: Sranangron or Sranankondre), officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America.
Suriname is situated between French Guiana to the east and Guyana to the west. The southern border is shared with Brazil and the northern border is the Atlantic coast. The southernmost borders with French Guiana and Guyana are disputed along the Marowijne and Corantijn rivers, respectively; while a part of the disputed maritime boundary with Guyana was arbitrated by the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea on September 20, 2007.
Suriname, at 163,000 sq. km is the smallest sovereign state in terms of area in South America.
The country is the only Dutch-speaking region in the world not a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands or Belgium and the only state outside Europe with Dutch as an official language (not counting South Africa and Namibia where the closely-related Afrikaans is used). The combined legacy of years of colonial occupation, immigration, and slavery has made Suriname one of the most multicultural societies in the world, with great ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. Suriname’s geographical size is just under 165,000 km2 (64,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of about 470,000 people, most of whom live on the country’s north coast.
The economy of Suriname is dominated by the bauxite industry, which accounts for more than 15% of GDP and 70% of export earnings. Other main export products include rice, bananas and shrimp. Suriname has recently started exploiting some of its sizeable oil and gold reserves. About a quarter of the people work in the agricultural sector. The Surinamese economy is very dependent on commerce, its main trade partners being the Netherlands, the United States, Canada and Caribbean countries.
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