Guyana by the Numbers: 50 Geography Facts & Statistics You Need to Know

Guyana is a country that defies easy categorisation. It sits on the shoulder of South America yet belongs culturally to the Caribbean. It is smaller than the United Kingdom in population but larger than Great Britain in land area. Its interior holds some of the oldest geological formations on the planet, while its offshore waters contain one of the newest and most prolific oil fields ever discovered.

Whether you are planning a trip, doing research, or simply curious about this extraordinary corner of the world, these 50 geography facts and statistics paint a vivid picture of a nation on the rise.

Guyana at a Glance

Those six numbers alone hint at a country of extraordinary contrasts: a tiny population spread across a vast, forest-cloaked territory, teeming with wildlife and suddenly awash in petroleum wealth. But the full story runs much deeper.

Where in the World Is Guyana?

Guyana occupies the north-eastern corner of South America, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Suriname to the east, Brazil to the south and south-west, and Venezuela to the west. Its geographic coordinates centre roughly on 5°N latitude and 59°W longitude, placing it squarely in the equatorial tropics.

The country spans 214,969 square kilometres (83,000 square miles), making it slightly smaller than Ghana and roughly the same size as the US state of Idaho. Despite its South American address, Guyana has far more in common culturally with the English-speaking Caribbean. It is a founding member of CARICOM (the Caribbean Community), whose headquarters sit in Georgetown, the capital.

The coastline stretches for 459 kilometres along the Atlantic, much of it protected by a system of sea walls, dams, and canals built by the Dutch in the colonial era. Georgetown itself sits approximately 1.5 metres below sea level at high tide, making coastal flood management a defining feature of Guyanese infrastructure and daily life.

The Land: Mountains, Rivers & Rainforest

Mountains

Guyana's western interior rises into the Pakaraima Mountains, a sandstone and granite plateau that forms part of the border with Venezuela and Brazil. The highest point is Mount Roraima, a dramatic flat-topped tepui standing at 2,810 metres (9,219 feet). Roraima's summit is shared by three countries — Guyana, Venezuela, and Brazil — and is believed to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel The Lost World.

Further south, the Kanuku Mountains form a rugged east-west chain that divides the Rupununi Savannah into its northern and southern sections. These mountains are a biodiversity hotspot, home to jaguars, giant otters, and hundreds of bird species.

Rivers

Guyana is a land defined by water. The country's very name derives from an Amerindian word meaning "Land of Many Waters," and its four great river systems are the arteries of national life:

• Essequibo River — At 1,010 kilometres, it is the longest river in Guyana and the third-longest in South America north of the Amazon. Its estuary is 21 kilometres wide.
• Courantyne River — Stretching 724 kilometres, it forms the natural border with Suriname along Guyana's eastern edge.
• Berbice River — Running 595 kilometres through the east, it gave its name to one of the original three colonial counties and remains vital for interior transport.
• Demerara River — Though shorter at 346 kilometres, it is arguably the most famous. Georgetown sits at its mouth, and "Demerara" has become synonymous worldwide with brown sugar and fine rum.

Rainforest & the Guiana Shield

Approximately 85% of Guyana is covered by forest — some 18.4 million hectares of largely intact tropical and subtropical woodland. This forest sits atop the Guiana Shield, one of the oldest geological formations on Earth, dated to between 1.4 and 1.8 billion years old. The Shield stretches across six countries (Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil) and holds roughly 20% of the world's fresh water.

Guyana's forests are not a monoculture. They range from coastal mangroves and swamp forests along the Atlantic to montane cloud forests on the tepui summits, with vast tracts of lowland tropical rainforest in between. The Iwokrama Rainforest, a 371,000-hectare protected area in the country's heart, serves as an internationally recognised model for sustainable forest management.

The Rupununi Savannah

Not all of Guyana is forest. The Rupununi Savannah covers approximately 15,000 square kilometres across the southern interior, a vast grassland dotted with termite mounds, palm islands, and seasonal wetlands. During the wet season (May to August), sections of the savannah flood, creating temporary links between the Amazon and Essequibo river basins — one of the very few places in the world where two major drainage basins connect above ground.

The 10 Administrative Regions

Guyana is divided into 10 administrative regions, each identified by a number and a name. Most regional names derive from the rivers that define their borders — a fitting system for the Land of Many Waters.

• Region 1 — Barima-Waini
• Region 2 — Pomeroon-Supenaam
• Region 3 — Essequibo Islands-West Demerara
• Region 4 — Demerara-Mahaica
• Region 5 — Mahaica-Berbice
• Region 6 — East Berbice-Corentyne
• Region 7 — Cuyuni-Mazaruni
• Region 8 — Potaro-Siparuni
• Region 9 — Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo
• Region 10 — Upper Demerara-Berbice

Region 4 (Demerara-Mahaica) is the most densely populated, encompassing Georgetown and its surrounding suburbs. By contrast, Region 9 (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) is the largest by area but one of the most sparsely inhabited, covering the vast southern Rupununi Savannah and deep interior forests. Roughly 90% of the total population lives on the narrow coastal plain spanning Regions 2 through 6.

People & Demographics

Guyana has a population of approximately 840,000 people, giving it one of the lowest population densities in the world: fewer than 4 people per square kilometre. To put that in perspective, neighbouring Brazil averages 25 per square kilometre, and the United Kingdom averages 275.

Georgetown, the capital and largest city, has a metropolitan population of roughly 200,000 — nearly a quarter of the national total. The next largest urban centres are Linden (an interior mining town) and New Amsterdam (on the Berbice River).

Ethnic Composition

Guyana is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the Western Hemisphere, a legacy of colonialism, the plantation economy, and successive waves of immigration:

• Indo-Guyanese — 39.8% (descendants of indentured labourers from India, 1838–1917)
• Afro-Guyanese — 29.3% (descendants of enslaved Africans)
• Mixed heritage — 19.9%
• Amerindian (Indigenous) — 10.5% (the original inhabitants)
• Other — 0.5% (including Chinese, Portuguese, and European descent)

The median age is just 26.5 years, making Guyana a youthful nation. And here is perhaps the most striking demographic fact of all: more Guyanese live abroad than in Guyana itself. The diaspora is concentrated in the United States (particularly New York), Canada (especially Toronto), and the United Kingdom, with an estimated 500,000 or more Guyanese-born individuals living overseas.

Nine Indigenous Nations

Long before European contact, the land that is now Guyana was home to diverse Amerindian peoples who had inhabited the region for at least 7,000 years. Today, nine distinct Indigenous nations are officially recognised:

1. Warao — "People of the canoe," found primarily in the Orinoco Delta and north-west Guyana
2. Lokono (Arawak) — Coastal and riverine communities, among the first peoples encountered by Europeans
3. Carib (Karinya) — Historically dominant along the coast, known as skilled warriors and traders
4. Akawaio — Highland communities in the Pakaraima Mountains and upper Mazaruni
5. Arekuna — Close cultural relatives of the Akawaio, found near the Venezuelan border
6. Patamona — Guardians of the Pakaraima highlands, including the area around Kaieteur Falls
7. Makushi — The largest interior nation, centred in the northern Rupununi Savannah
8. Wapichan — Inhabiting the southern Rupununi, known for their land stewardship initiatives
9. Wai Wai — A small, remote community in the deep south near the Brazilian border

The first three peoples (Warao, Lokono, and Carib) are considered coastal nations, historically concentrated along the Atlantic littoral and major river mouths. The remaining six are interior nations, living in the highlands, savannahs, and deep forests of the hinterland.

Biodiversity & Wildlife

Guyana's intact forests, savannahs, and waterways support a staggering array of life. Sitting within the Guiana Shield — one of the world's most biodiverse regions — the country punches far above its weight in species richness.

Key Biodiversity Numbers

Among the headline species, the Harpy Eagle — the world's most powerful raptor — nests in Guyana's tall canopy trees and serves as the national bird. The country's forests form a critical segment of the Jaguar Corridor, connecting jaguar populations from Mexico to Argentina. Other iconic species include the Giant Otter (the world's largest, reaching 1.8 metres), the Black Caiman (South America's largest predator, up to 5 metres long), and the Arapaima, one of the world's largest freshwater fish, capable of reaching 3 metres and 200 kilograms.

Guyana is a net carbon sink, meaning its forests absorb more carbon dioxide than the country emits. The standing forest stores an estimated 19.5 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent — a globally significant carbon reserve. Under its Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), Guyana has pioneered results-based payments for forest conservation, receiving funds from Norway and other partners in exchange for maintaining low deforestation rates.

The Oil Boom: World's Fastest-Growing Economy

No discussion of modern Guyana is complete without the oil story. In 2015, ExxonMobil announced a major deepwater discovery in the Stabroek Block, approximately 190 kilometres offshore. The first oil flowed in December 2019, and what followed has been nothing short of extraordinary.

The Numbers

The Stabroek Block, operated by an ExxonMobil-Hess-CNOOC consortium, now contains more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil-equivalent. Production has scaled rapidly: from zero in 2019 to roughly 900,000 barrels per day across multiple floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessels. A sixth FPSO is planned to push output toward 1.3 million barrels per day by 2027, which would rank Guyana among the top 15 oil-producing nations globally.

The economic impact has been staggering. Guyana recorded GDP growth of 43.6% in 2024 — the highest in the world by a wide margin. Forecasts for 2026 put growth at approximately 22.4%, still leagues ahead of every other economy. In nominal terms, GDP per capita has surged to approximately $31,378, and on a purchasing-power-parity (PPP) basis, it reaches roughly $94,260 — placing Guyana in the same bracket as some of the world's wealthiest nations.

Crucially, Guyana's oil has a break-even cost of approximately $30 per barrel, making it profitable even in low-price environments. The government established the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) to manage petroleum revenues, with withdrawals governed by a formula designed to ensure intergenerational equity and guard against the "resource curse."

Landmarks & Heritage

Guyana's built and natural heritage reflects centuries of Indigenous, Dutch, British, and multicultural influence.

St. George's Cathedral

Rising 43.5 metres (143 feet) above Georgetown, St. George's Anglican Cathedral is one of the tallest wooden structures in the world. Designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield and completed in 1892, the Gothic Revival masterpiece is built entirely from local Greenheart timber. It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List since 1995.

Stabroek Market

Georgetown's iconic Stabroek Market, with its distinctive corrugated iron clock tower, dates to 1880 in its current form, though a market has existed on the site since the late 18th century. It remains the bustling commercial heart of the capital, where you can find everything from fresh produce and spices to gold jewellery and handcrafted souvenirs.

Kaieteur Falls

At 226 metres (741 feet), Kaieteur Falls is the world's largest single-drop waterfall by volume. Located in the Potaro-Siparuni region within Kaieteur National Park, it drops off a sandstone tableland into a gorge surrounded by pristine primary rainforest. The falls are home to the endemic Kaieteur Golden Frog and large colonies of Marabunta (tarantula hawk wasps) and swifts that nest behind the curtain of water.

Fun Facts

Last updated: February 10, 2026. Data sourced from the Bureau of Statistics Guyana, World Bank, IMF, UNDP, BirdLife International, Conservation International, and the Ministry of Natural Resources.