French Guiana was originally inhabited by indigenous people: Kalina, Lokono (part of the Arawak grouping), Galibi, Palikur, Teko, Wayampi and Wayana.

[22] Illegal and ecologically destructive gold mining by Brazilian garimpeiros is a chronic issue in the remote interior rain forest of French Guiana.

The Guiana Space Centre, located a short distance along the coast from Kourou, has grown considerably since the initial launches of the Véronique rockets.

[31] French Guiana lies between latitudes 2° and 6° N, and longitudes 51° and 55° W. It consists of two main geographical regions: a coastal strip where the majority of the people live, and dense, near-inaccessible rainforest which gradually rises to the modest peaks of the Tumuc-Humac mountains along the Brazilian frontier.

[32] Located within six degrees of the Equator and rising only to modest elevations, French Guiana is hot and oppressively humid all year round.

In most parts of French Guiana, rainfall is always heavy especially from December to July – typically over 330 millimetres or 13 inches can be expected each month during this period throughout the department.

Between August and November, the eastern half experiences a warm dry season with rainfall below 100 millimetres or 3.94 inches and average high temperatures above 30 °C (86 °F) occurring in September and October, causing eastern French Guiana to be classified as a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am); Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in the west has a tropical rainforest climate (Af).

Environmental threats include habitat fragmentation from roads, which remains very limited compared to other forests of South America; immediate and deferred impacts of EDF's Petit-Saut Dam; gold mining; poor control of hunting and poaching, facilitated by the creation of many tracks; and the introduction of all-terrain vehicles.

Logging concessions or free transfers are sometimes granted by local authorities to persons traditionally deriving their livelihood from the forest.

A thriving rice production, developed on polders near Mana from the early 1980s to the late 2000s, has almost completely disappeared since 2011 due to marine erosion and new EU plant health rules which forbid the use of many pesticides and fertilizers.

[48] French Guiana experienced a long period of demographic stagnation during the days of the Cayenne and Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni penal colonies (19th century and first half of the 20th century), when, with the exception of a brief gold rush in the 1900s and 1910s, it suffered from a bad reputation due to its association with penal colonies and bad sanitary conditions (yellow fever and malaria in particular).

Population growth has been fueled both by high birth rates and large arrivals of immigrants (from metropolitan France, to man the public administrations and the space center, as well as from neighboring countries, in particular Suriname and Brazil).

In the 21st century, the birth rate has remained high, and new arrivals of migrants seeking asylum (in particular from Haiti, and more recently from Syria and Afghanistan) kept population growth above 2% per year until the middle of the 2010s.

[58] Estimates of the percentages of French Guiana ethnic composition are difficult to produce due to the presence of a large proportion of immigrants.

People of African descent are the largest ethnic group, though estimates vary as to the exact percentage, depending upon whether the large Haitian community is included as well.

The main indigenous groups (forming about 3–4% of the population) are the Arawak, Carib, Teko (formerly known as the Emerillon), Kaliña (formerly known as the Galibi), Palikur, Wayampi and Wayana.

For them and other groups of migrants, the majority arriving from other South American, Caribbean and Middle Eastern countries (especially Cuba, Yemen, and Palestine), its status as French territory makes it a "gateway" to Europe.

The French government and its agencies have responsibility for a wide range of issues that are reserved to the national executive power, such as defense and external relations.

The president of France appoints a prefect (resident at the prefecture building in Cayenne) as his representative to head the local government of French Guiana.

The border between the department and Suriname, the Maroni River, flows through rain forest and is difficult for the Gendarmerie and the French Foreign Legion to patrol.

"The violent reaction by the garimpeiros can be explained by the exceptional take of 617 grams of gold, about 20 percent of the quantity seized in 2009 during the battle against illegal mining", said Phillipe Duporge, the director of French Guiana's border police, at a press conference the next day.

[74] French Guiana does not have a railway system, with the exception of a small section in the Centre Spatial Guyanais used for the transport of components: when the territory was a penal colony, there were some railroad lines built by the prisoners themselves to connect the various baths with each other, the remains of which (now disused and mostly engulfed by the jungle) are still visible in some areas.

There are also several airstrips in the department, located in Camopi, Maripasoula, Ouanary, Saint-Georges-de-l'Oyapock, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni and Saül, for a total of eleven hubs (four paved and seven unpaved).

For connections between the coastal towns (except Montsinéry-Tonnegrande), the "collective cab" (Taxis Co) method is quite widespread, which are minibuses with a capacity of about ten people that leave as soon as there is a certain number of users on board.

In 2010, the general council reached an agreement with some of the operators of this service to make it at least partially public under the name of TIG (Transporte Interurbano de la Guiana), with fixed departure times and predefined stops.

French military forces in Guiana number around 2,000 personnel[75] and include the following: The local architecture is characterized by its Creole, Amerindian and Bushinenge influences.

Considered the longest in the world, it takes place on afternoon of Sunday, between Epiphany at the beginning of January and Ash Wednesday in February or (month).

The period from 1900 to 1950 constitutes an important stage in local literature insofar as it gave birth to numerous writers who had a considerable impact, such as those of Negritude (Négritude).

Whether through their writings or their political activities, they take into account this painful period that had serious consequences on the local society and on the black world in general.

The most popular sport in French Guiana today is football, followed by basketball, cycling, swimming and handball, although there are some canoeing, judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, aikido, karate, fencing, horseback riding, rowing and volleyball clubs in the department.