Travel to Georgetown

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.

Georgetown retains the largest collection of 19th-century wooden buildings anywhere in the world, a legacy of colonial construction using local hardwoods that proved more durable and better suited to the tropical climate than imported brick or stone. The most famous is St. George’s Cathedral, a Gothic Revival structure completed in 1892 that stands 43.5 meters tall and is one of the tallest wooden buildings ever constructed, built almost entirely from Guyanese greenheart, known for its strength and fire resistance.

The city’s wooden architecture also includes City Hall (1889, Gothic Revival, currently undergoing an EU-supported restoration), the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology, and dozens of private homes featuring Demerara shutters and raised foundations on brick pillars designed to cope with frequent flooding. Great fires in 1945 and 1951 destroyed much of the commercial center, but most of the residential timber architecture survived and continues to define Kingston, Queenstown, and Cummingsburg.

Georgetown’s population reflects the layered migration history of Guyana. Indo-Guyanese residents, descended from Indian indentured laborers, make up the largest population group nationally, while Afro-Guyanese families, descended from enslaved Africans of the plantation era, have the strongest presence in the capital. Amerindians from nine distinct ethnic groups, along with smaller Chinese, Portuguese, and European communities, complete the cultural mix Guyana’s national motto describes as ‘One People, One Nation, One Destiny’.

This diversity is most visible in the city’s food, religion, and festivals. Hindu temples, Anglican churches, Catholic cathedrals, and Islamic mosques operate within a few blocks of each other. Stabroek Market sells Indian spices, Chinese vegetables, Amerindian crafts, Caribbean fruit, and Portuguese baked goods under one cast-iron roof. Major annual festivals include Mashramani, Diwali, Phagwah, Eid, and Emancipation Day.