Suriname is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Organization of American States.

Suriname is highly diverse, with no ethnic group forming a majority; proportionally, its Muslim and Hindu populations are some of the largest in the Americas.

de Vries wrote of travelling up the "Sername" river in 1634 until he encountered the English colony there; the terminal vowel remained in future Dutch spellings and pronunciations.

[20] As a result of the Surrinam spelling, 19th-century British sources offered the folk etymology Surryham, saying it was the name given to the Suriname River by Lord Willoughby in the 1660s in honour of the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey when an English colony was established under a grant from King Charles II.

In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of Surinam they had gained from the English.

The planters of the colony relied heavily on African slaves to cultivate, harvest and process the commodity crops of coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and cotton plantations along the rivers.

With the help of the native South Americans living in the adjoining rain forests, runaway slaves established a new and unique culture in the interior that was highly successful in its own right.

[28] The Netherlands abolished slavery in Suriname in 1863, under a gradual process that required slaves to work on plantations for 10 transition years for minimal pay, which was considered as partial compensation for their masters.

After that transition period expired in 1873, most freedmen largely abandoned the plantations where they had worked for several generations in favor of the capital city, Paramaribo.

Although Suriname's population remains relatively small, because of this complex colonization and exploitation, it is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse countries in the world.

Its leaders were accused of fraud in the 1977 elections, in which Arron won a further term, and the discontent was such that a large portion of the population fled to the Netherlands, joining the already significant Surinamese community there.

The brutal civil war between the Suriname army and Maroons loyal to rebel leader Ronnie Brunswijk, begun in 1986, continued and its effects further weakened Bouterse's position during the 1990s.

He was the main suspect in the court case concerning the December murders, the 1982 assassination of opponents of military rule in Fort Zeelandia, Paramaribo.

The two countries work together through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

The southern part consists of tropical rainforest and sparsely inhabited savanna along the border with Brazil, covering about 80% of Suriname's land surface.

[69][70][71][72] According to the environmental non-profit Conservation International, which funded the expedition, Suriname's ample supply of fresh water is vital to the biodiversity and healthy ecosystems of the region.

[74] On 21 March 2013, Suriname's REDD+ Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP 2013) was approved by the member countries of the Participants Committee of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF).

The declaration, led by these indigenous communities and with the support of Conservation International (CI) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Guianas, comprises almost half of the total area of Suriname.

[76] This area includes large forests and is considered "essential for the country's climate resilience, freshwater security, and green development strategy."

[citation needed] The discovery, exploration and exploitation of oil and gold nowadays contributes substantially to Suriname's economic independence.

Rampant government expenditures, poor tax collection, a bloated civil service, and reduced foreign aid in 1999 contributed to the fiscal deficit, estimated at 11% of GDP.

This is a legacy of centuries of Dutch rule, which entailed successive periods of forced, contracted, or voluntary migration by various nationalities and ethnic groups from around the world.

[1][90][91][92][93] The vast majority are descendants of 19th-century indentured workers from India, hailing mostly from areas in the Hindi Belt of modern Bihar, Jharkhand, and northeastern Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Bengal.

[95] The option to choose between Surinamese or Dutch citizenship in the years leading up to Suriname's independence in 1975 led to a mass migration to the Netherlands.

[16] According to the International Organization for Migration, around 272,600 people from Suriname lived in other countries in the late 2010s, in particular in the Netherlands (c. 192,000), France (c. 25,000, most of them in French Guiana),[c] the United States (c. 15,000), Guyana (c. 5,000), Aruba (c. 1,500), and Canada (c.

Many Suriname-born football players and Dutch-born football players of Surinamese descent have turned out to play for the Dutch national team, including Gerald Vanenburg, Ruud Gullit, Frank Rijkaard, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert, Aron Winter, Georginio Wijnaldum, Virgil van Dijk, and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

Other kickboxing world champions include Gilbert Ballantine, Rayen Simson, Melvin Manhoef, Tyrone Spong, Andy Ristie, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Regian Eersel, and Donovan Wisse.

[113] Suriname, along with neighboring Guyana, is one of only two countries on the mainland South American continent that drive on the left, although many vehicles are left-hand-drive as well as right-hand-drive.

[120] Comparing Suriname with other Caribbean nations show that in 2017 the age-standardized death rate for all causes was 793 (males 969, females 641) per 100,000, far below the 1219 of Haiti, somewhat below the 944 of Guyana but considerably above the 424 of Bermuda.

According to the current U.S. Department of State Travel Advisory at the date of the 2018 report's publication, Suriname has been assessed as Level 1: exercise normal precautions.