Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Guyana, with just under 800,000 people, has about as many inhabitants as Suriname and French Guiana combined. When Guyana became independent in 1966, its British rulers left behind an ethnically and culturally divided population in which people of South Asian (Indian) ancestry now make up about 44 percent and those of African background (including Afro-European ancestry) 30 percent. This makes for contentious politics, given the religious mix that is approximately 57 percent Christian, 28 percent Hindu, and 7 percent Muslim. Guyana remains dominantly rural, and plantation crops continue to figure prominently among exports (gold from the interior is the most valuable single product). Oil may soon become a factor in the economy, however, because a recently discovered (apparently significant) reserve that lies offshore from Suriname extends westward beneath Guyana’s waters. Still, Guyana is among the realm’s poorest and least urbanized countries, and it is ever more strongly affected by the expanding drug industry of South America’s north. Its thinly populated interior, beyond the reach of antidrug campaigns, has become a staging area for cocaine distribution to the United States . . . " [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 125]