Guianese people

Guianese people are people identifying with the country of Guiana. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural.

Guiana is a multiethnic and multilingual society, home to people of various ethnic, racial, religious, and national origins, with the majority of the population made up of Old World immigrants and their descendants.

As a result, the Guianese do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship and allegiance to the country. Aside from the indigenous population, nearly all Guianese or their ancestors arrived since the Age of Discovery and establishment of the many colonies, primarily from Africa, Europe and Asia.

Ethnic groups

 * Whites make up 27% of the Guianese population. They mostly consist of people from the British Isles who form 44% of the European Guianese population, but the other groups are Dutch (20%), Spanish (18%), French (9%) and Portuguese (3%), with other Europeans in the remaining 7%.
 * Afro-Guianese form about 23% of the population. They are mostly of Akan ancestry, but the Ewe, Loango, Yoruba and Kongo have also left their cultural footprints there. They are usually divided into two groups.
 * The Creoles (55%). These are descendants of enslaved Africans who also have some admixture from the European (mostly Dutch) and Jewish colonists.
 * The Maroons (45%). These are descendants of enslaved Africans who managed to escape and set up a living in the Amazon.
 * Indo-Guianese form 7% of the population. They are descendants of 19th-century indentured workers from British India, who came to work on the sugar estates of Surinam. They are mostly from the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh, in Northern India.
 * Indonesian Guianese, descendants of indentured Javanese and Malay workers from the Dutch East Indies (present Indonesia), form 4% of the population.
 * Amerindians, the original inhabitants of Guiana, form 13% of the national population. The main groups are the Akurio, Arawak, Kalina (Caribs), Tiriyó and Wayana.
 * Chinese Guianese, mainly descendants of the earliest 19th-century indentured workers, mainly Hakka and Cantonese. The 1990s and early 21st century saw renewed immigration on a large scale. In the year 2011 the Chinese Guianese formed 2% of the population alone.
 * Jews and Lebanese, forming 1% of the population.
 * Lebanese Guianese, primarily Maronites from Lebanon.
 * Jews of Sephardic and Ashkenazi origin. In their history, Jodensavanne plays a major role. Many Jews are mixed with other ethnicities.
 * Mestizos from Venezuela form 18% of the Guianese population.

White Guianese
White or European Guianese are the majority group in Guiana. They are divided into 6 distinct groups:
 * Anglo-Guianese, which form 20% of the population. They are descended from British adventurers, explorers and soldiers from Scotland, Ireland and England (although mostly Scotland).
 * Dutch Guianese, forming 44% of the European population, descended from Dutch farmers in the 19th century. They originate from the Netherlands, specifically the Noord-Holland and Zeeland regions, as well as Groningen, Utrecht and Gelderland and Flanders in Belgium.
 * Spanish Guianese, forming 18% of the population, are descendants of Spanish conquistadors from primarily the Canary Islands, Andalusia and the Basque Country.
 * French Guianese, mostly Huguenots, form 9% of the European population.
 * The Surinam Madeirans are descendants of indentured workers from Madeira in 1853. They form a small 3% of the population.
 * Other Euro-Guianans, mostly of German, Swedish and Italian origin, form 7% of the Guianese European population.

Afro-Guianans
African Guianans form 17% of the population. They are descendants of (mostly) Akan slaves from Ghana, but they also include Ewe, Loango, Kongo and Yoruba. They are divided into two groups: the Creoles (Africans with elements of the Europeans and Jews) and Maroons (Escaped Africans who allied with the Amerindian tribes.)

Amerindians
The natives of Guiana, the Amerindians form 13% of the population. They are divided into five main groups:
 * Carib (Akurio, Kali'na, Sikiana, Tiriyó, Wai-wai and Wayana)
 * Arawak (Lokono and Wapishana)
 * Warao
 * Ingariko (Akawaio, Patamona and Pemon)
 * Tupi-Guarani (Palikur, Teko, Wayampi)

Indo-Guianese
The Indo-Guianese form 7% of the Guianese population. They are descendants of workers from the British Raj who were made to work on the sugar plantations, and mostly come from Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh in northern India, as well as Punjab and Tamil Nadu.

Indonesian Guianese
The Javanese, or the Indonesian Guianese, form 4% of the population. They are descendants of indentured workers and farmers from Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), although Malays and Indos are also countable.

Chinese Guianese
The Sino-Guianese form 2% of the population and are descendants of indentured workers from southeastern China. They are mostly of Hakka and Cantonese ancestry, but newer immigrants speak Mandarin.

Jews and Lebanese
Jewish and Lebanese or Levantine Guianans form a small 1% of the Guianese population. They consist of Maronites from Lebanon (along with groups of Syrians and Palestinians) and Jews of Sephardic and Ashkenazi origin, who owned sugar plantations with African slaves as workers.