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A Capital Built Below the Atlantic
Georgetown sits at the mouth of the Demerara River on Guyana's northern Atlantic coast, built on land that lies 0.91 meters below high-tide level. The city is one of the few national capitals in the world where daily life depends on an active system of sea defenses, drainage canals, and sluices that carry water out of the city and into the ocean at low tide. The Dutch engineered the original drainage layout during their colonial period, and the system is still maintained along the same principles today.
Founded in 1781 during the Dutch Demerara colony, the city was originally called Longchamps and then Stabroek before British forces renamed it Georgetown in 1812 after King George III. It became the capital of British Guiana and remained so when the country gained independence in 1966. Georgetown is the only English-speaking capital in South America and serves as the headquarters of CARICOM, the Caribbean Community, an intergovernmental organization that formally links Guyana with fourteen other member states in economic and political cooperation across the Anglophone Caribbean region.
