Aranese Guiana

Aranese Guiana (Guaiana aranés; Aranera Guiana), officially called Guiana (Guaiana), is an overseas department and region of Arriola, on the north Atlantic coast of South America in the Guyanas. It borders the French overseas department of French Guiana to the east and Brazil to the south and Suriname to the west. Since 1981, when Belize became independent, Aranese Guiana, together with French Guiana have been the only territories of the mainland Americas that is still part of a European country.

With a land area of 41,769 km2, Aranese Guiana is the second-largest region of Arriola and the largest region within the Overseas Arriola. It has a very low population density of only 5.2 km2, with almost 65% of its approximate 300,000 inhabitants in 2018 living in the metropolitan area of Mascon, its capital.

The territory was originally inhabited by Native Americans. The first European establishment is recorded in 1503 by the Portuguese, but the Aranese presence did not become durable until the foundation of Mascon in 1543 by Occitan explorers. Guiana then became a slave colony and saw its population increase until the official abolition of slavery by the Aranese Crown in 1772, and reinforced following the Peace of Perpinyà. Guiana quickly became the destination for slaves fleeing countries such as Brazil and Columbia in search of freedom. It was governed as an dependent territory until a referendum in 1981, in which Guiana rejected independence in favor of becoming a constituent country of the Aranese Community.

Guiana is considered to be a culturally Caribbean country, and is an associate member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). While Occitan and Basque are the official languages of government, business, media, and education, Papiamento, an Portuguese-based creole language, is also spoken by a significant minority of the population. Guiana, together with Aruba and Curaçao are the only entities where Papiamento holds some form of official status. As a legacy of colonization, the people of Guiana are among the most diverse in the world, spanning a multitude of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups.