SURINAM
(Republic of Surinam)

Capital: Paramaribo
Currency: Surinam dollar (SRD)
Population: 456 900 people
GDP (PPS): 8 bln. dollars of the USA (2017)
Area: 163,821 sq.km.
IRCHP: 97 (2015)

Surinam, the country located on the northern coast of South America. Surinam - one of the smallest countries of South America, but its population is one of the most ethnically various in the region. Its economy depends on its extensive deliveries of natural resources, first of all bauxites from which it is one of the leading producers in the world. Youzhny of the four fifth of the country are almost completely covered with untouched rainforests.

Earlier known as the Dutch Guiana, Surinam was plantation colony of the Netherlands which found independence on November 25, 1975. From 1980 to 1987 the country coped the sequence of military regime. In 1987 the new civil constitution was approved. One more military coup took place in 1990, but next year the country returned to civilian rule. The capital of Paramaribo is in 9 miles (15 km) from the Atlantic Ocean on the river Surinam.

Surinam borders on the Atlantic Ocean in the north, French Guiana in the east, Brazil in the south and Guyana in the West. Surinam participates in territorial disputes with Guyana and French Guiana which are heritage of colonial domination. The dispute with Guyana focuses on the Triangle of the New River, of 6 000 square miles (15 600 sq.km) between two inflows of the Kurantine River in the south of Guyana. In addition to the requirement of the New Triangle of the river Surinam also challenges the border with Guyana along Kurantina: Surinam applies for sovereignty over all river and, thus, considers the west bank as border while Guyana claims that талвег or the deepest channel of the river, is border. In 2007 the international tribunal of the United Nations is solved is even older a border dispute between two countries in which Surinam received one third in the conflict area of the Caribbean Sea. The area in an outcome with French Guiana is 5 000 square miles (13 000 square kilometers) between the Itani and Maruini Rivers in a southwest corner of French Guiana.

Surinam has tropical climate. The inhabited area has four seasons in the north: an insignificant rainy season since the beginning of December prior to the beginning of February, a small dry season since the beginning of February until the end of April, the main rainy season since the end of April to the middle of August and a big dry season from from the middle of August prior to the beginning of December. Daytime temperatures in Paramaribo vary from 70 to 90 °F (21 and 32 °C). In an interior daily extreme temperatures can vary approximately by 20 degrees. However the range of average temperatures between the warmest month, September and the coldest in January is only about 3 degrees. Rainfall is highest in the central and southeast parts of the country.