Kourou () is a
commune
A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to:
Administrative-territorial entities
* Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township
** Communes of ...
in
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...
, an
overseas region
The overseas departments and regions of France (french: départements et régions d'outre-mer, ; ''DROM'') are departments of France that are outside metropolitan France, the European part of France. They have exactly the same status as mainlan ...
and
department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
. Kourou is famous for being the location of the
Guiana Space Centre
The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...
, the main
spaceport
A spaceport or cosmodrome is a site for launching or receiving spacecraft, by analogy to a seaport for ships or an airport for aircraft. The word ''spaceport'', and even more so ''cosmodrome'', has traditionally been used for sites capable ...
of France and the
European Space Agency
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
(ESA). It is an administrative district in French Guiana and the main town there.
Geography
Some northwest of the French Guianese capital
Cayenne
Cayenne (; ; gcr, Kayenn) is the capital city of French Guiana, an overseas region and Overseas department, department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic Oc ...
the
Kourou River
The Kourou is a river in French Guiana, discharging into the Atlantic Ocean. It is long. The town of Kourou is located at its estuary, which is generally used as a pleasure port.
Like the river Amazon, it has brown, muddy waters due to sediment ...
empties into the
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
Ocean. At the mouth of this river sits the town of Kourou, which is ringed by four hills: Carapa, Pariacabo, Café and Lombard, with the Singes and Condamine mountains not far behind. There are three lakes within the town's city limits: Lake Bois Diable (where one can take lessons in jetski and other aquatic sports), Lake Marie-Claire (the smallest and calmest), and Lake Bois Chaudat (the biggest of the three; also open to sport lovers, especially canoers and kayakers). Long white sand beaches and some rocky outcrops line the town's ocean coast, the riverbank and all points inland consisting mostly of mangrove and dense tropical rainforest.
The town had a population of 25,685 inhabitants at the 2017 census. Its inhabitants can be classified into three ethnic groups of roughly equal size:
*Indigenous peoples (mostly Kalina - also called
Galibi
The Kalina, also known as the Caribs or mainland Caribs and by several other names, are an indigenous people native to the northern coastal areas of South America. Today, the Kalina live largely in villages on the rivers and coasts of Venezuela, ...
),
Creoles,
Maroons
Maroons are descendants of African diaspora in the Americas, Africans in the Americas who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous peoples, eventually ethnogenesi ...
(Boni and
Saramaka
The Saramaka, Saamaka or Saramacca are one of six Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes") in the Republic of Suriname and one of the Maroon peoples in French Guiana. In 2007, the Saramaka won a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Hum ...
),
*Whites (mostly French, from
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...
), and
*Foreigners (
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
ians,
Suriname
Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...
se,
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related ton ...
,
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
ans,
Guyanese, etc.)
The Saramaka mostly settled in the ''
quartier Saramaka'', along the river. In 2006, a fire rendered 55 people homeless.
Guiana in general has a high level of crime compared to the rest of France's ''départements''; Kourou has an average of two armed robberies a day. A march protesting the high level of insecurity felt by most of the population was held in Kourou on 27 October 2006. Shopkeepers of Chinese descent in particular are often targeted by armed robbers, their cash registers emptied and some products stolen.
Kourou is the port of departure for those going to the
Iles du Salut
The Salvation Islands (french: Îles du Salut, so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland; sometimes mistakenly called Safety Islands) are a group of small islands of volcanic origin about off the coast of Fre ...
, of which the most famous is
Devil's Island
The penal colony of Cayenne ( French: ''Bagne de Cayenne''), commonly known as Devil's Island (''Île du Diable''), was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953 in the Salvation Islands ...
. It is also common for many to go up the river in canoes on weekends to camp in the forest.
The
Guiana Space Centre
The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...
, where the
European Space Agency
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
starts missions, is located a little behind and outside the town. Part of the town and the islands are closed during rocket launches.
In 2010, the Kourou
solar power plant
A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building- ...
was built near Kourou on Aubanèle Savannah. It is the largest solar power plant in
Overseas France
Overseas France (french: France d'outre-mer) consists of 13 France, French-administered territories outside Europe, mostly the remains of the French colonial empire that chose to remain a part of the French state under various statuses after ...
.
History
Before the Europeans
Not much is known of the pre-colonial era. The area was mostly populated by
Kalina, or Galibi before the arrival of the French in the late 17th century.
Not far from the town at Les Roches Gravées (The Carved Rocks), indigenous art can be seen on the rock walls.
Early colonization
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón
Vicente Yáñez Pinzón () (c. 1462 – after 1514) was a Spanish navigator and explorer, the youngest of the Pinzón brothers. Along with his older brother, Martín Alonso Pinzón (''c.'' 1441 – ''c.'' 1493), who captained the '' Pinta'', he s ...
sailed along most of the north coast of South America and passed by the current location of Kourou in 1500.
The Jesuits Lombard and Creuilly baptised a few Galibis at the church of Saint Nicholas in Cayenne in December 1710 and returned with them soon after to farm the land at Guatémala, across the river from Kourou. The
Society of Jesus
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
was disbanded (in Guiana) in 1762, however, and Kourou was nothing more than a small village until the arrival of the Expedition.
In 1744,
La Condamine
La Condamine ( lij, A Cundamina ) is the central ward in the Principality of Monaco. Its landmarks include Port Hercules, the Rainier III Nautical Stadium, and the Princess Antoinette Park. Its farmer's market at the ''Place d'Armes'' dates fro ...
, in charge of the expedition sent to Peru in 1735 to determine the length of a degree of the
meridian arc
In geodesy and navigation, a meridian arc is the curve between two points on the Earth's surface having the same longitude. The term may refer either to a segment of the meridian, or to its length.
The purpose of measuring meridian arcs is to de ...
in the neighbourhood of the equator, passed by and gave his name to one of the mountains behind Kourou.
Expedition
![Kourou1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Kourou1.jpg)
The mission at Kourou being abandoned by the Jesuits, the engineers Mentelle and Tugny designed the layout of the future town. This resulted in the neighbourhood called the Bourg, around the Church of Saint Catherine and next to the port on the river.
That same year, 1763, as agreed in the
Treaty of Paris Treaty of Paris may refer to one of many treaties signed in Paris, France:
Treaties
1200s and 1300s
* Treaty of Paris (1229), which ended the Albigensian Crusade
* Treaty of Paris (1259), between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France
* Trea ...
, Great Britain took control of
New France
New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spai ...
. Having lost their largest and richest colony, the French decided to send a large expedition to Guiana, commanded by
Choiseul. Around 10,000 to 12,000 people, mostly Frenchmen, tempted by stories of an
El Dorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
on the other side of the ocean, settled in Kourou.
The small town, surrounded by marshes and rainforest, was unprepared for such a massive influx of people, and around 6,000 of the pioneers died within the year due to fevers and other illnesses. Those remaining fled to the
îles du Salut, free of mosquitoes due to constant winds, to recover before being repatriated to
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...
. Hence the name, "Salvation Islands." Previously they had been known as the ''îles du Diable'' ("Devil's Islands"), and one of the islands retains the name to this day.
The failure of the Expedition only served to discourage settling in Guiana. The colony earned the nickname ''Enfer Vert'' ("Green Hell"), which it is still trying to shake. No other project of mass colonisation was undertaken, and the population of Whites was always drastically lower than that of the slaves. The population of the colony, of all races, did not rise above 20,000 until the gold rush (starting in 1855),
the second abolition of slavery in 1848 and the founding of the prisons.
Prisons
Kourou was formerly the home of the "Kourou Prison" which was one of the main prisons in French Guiana, and which was also a part of the notorious
Devil's Island Prison System. The Kourou Prison was dedicated mostly to agriculture.
In 1852 the three main islands off of Kourou's coast, the
Salut island group (which included Devil's Island) also became prisons. These island prisons held mostly political prisoners, as well as some of France's toughest criminals. The first prisoners arrived in 1862.
In 1938, a law was passed prohibiting the transport of any new prisoners from France to French Guiana. In 1946 eight years later, the Kourou Prison was finally shut down, while some prisoners were kept in other Guyanese prisons until as late as 1953.
After the closing of the prison, most of the prison buildings were demolished to make room for the ''Hôtel des Roches'', but some vestiges of that period remain. One notable remnant of the prison is the Dreyfus Tower, which stands where the river meets the ocean. This tower was used in pre-radio days to communicate with the islands via
Semaphore
Semaphore (; ) is the use of an apparatus to create a visual signal transmitted over distance. A semaphore can be performed with devices including: fire, lights, flags, sunlight, and moving arms. Semaphores can be used for telegraphy when arra ...
. Other prison ruins that remain are the prison bakery — now on private property, but still visible from a cul-de-sac — and an old prison fountain near the moucaya palm trees.
CSG and the French Foreign Legion
In 1965, the Guiana Space Centre was founded a little behind the town by the
CNES
The (CNES; French: ''Centre national d'études spatiales'') is the French government space agency (administratively, a "public administration with industrial and commercial purpose"). Its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is und ...
. With the launch facility being used by the
European Space Agency
, owners =
, headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France
, coordinates =
, spaceport = Guiana Space Centre
, seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png
, seal_size = 130px
, image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...
since 1975, the urbanisation of Kourou began in earnest.
The
3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment
The 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment (french: 3e Régiment étranger d'infanterie, 3e REI) is an infantry regiment of the Foreign Legion in the French Army. The regiment is stationed in French Guiana. Its mission includes the protection of the C ...
of the
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, Armoured Cavalry Arm, cavalry, Military engineering, engineers, Airborne forces, airborne troops. It was created ...
, whose mission is to protect the CSG, has had a base in the ''Forget'' neighbourhood since 1973. They clashed with the Creoles in 1985 and 2006.
Demographics
Historical population
Migrations
The places of birth of the 26,221 residents in the commune of Kourou at the 2015 census were the following:
*48.7% were born in French Guiana
*16.0% in
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France (french: France métropolitaine or ''la Métropole''), also known as European France (french: Territoire européen de la France) is the area of France which is geographically in Europe. This collective name for the European ...
*2.0% in
Martinique
Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in th ...
*0.9% in
Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...
*0.4% in other parts of
Overseas France
Overseas France (french: France d'outre-mer) consists of 13 France, French-administered territories outside Europe, mostly the remains of the French colonial empire that chose to remain a part of the French state under various statuses after ...
*32.2% in foreign countries (notably
Suriname
Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...
, followed by
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
and
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
); among these, 30.7% were immigrants and 1.4% were children of French citizens born abroad
These were the countries of birth of the immigrants living in the commune of Kourou at the 2009 census:
* born in Suriname: 3,035
* born in Haiti: 1,857
* born in Brazil: 1,806
* born in other countries: 1,327
Climate
Like most of French Guiana, Kourou has a
tropical monsoon climate
An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ...
(
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...
''Am'') with a short dry season centered between the months of August and October when the
Intertropical Convergence Zone
The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ ), known by sailors as the doldrums or the calms because of its monotonous windless weather, is the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge. It encircles Earth near the thermal e ...
is furthest north. During the remainder of the year rainfall is always heavy. Between November and July a total of can be expected in nine months, with rain on most days and very cloudy skies.
Economy
Kourou's economy is largely dominated by the CSG, from which the European
Ariane rockets are launched, as well as the Russian
Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис ...
and the Italian
Vega
Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only from the Sun, an ...
rockets.
Transportation
Kourou is served by
Kourou Airport, located at the west of the city.
Politics
Kourou is the main town on an "administrative district" of French Guiana. Such a district is equivalent to a
county
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Kourou is represented in Paris as part of
French Guiana's 2nd constituency
The 2nd constituency of French Guiana is a French legislative Constituency (France), constituency in the French Guiana departments of France, ''département''. Comprising the western two-thirds of the ''département'', the 2nd constituency contain ...
, which has been held by former Kourou city councilor
Davy Rimane
Davy Rimane (born 1979) is a French politician and labor activist. Rimane was elected to represent French Guiana's 2nd constituency in the 2022 French legislative election. He had previously contested the seat in the French Guiana's 2nd constitue ...
since 2022.
Tourism
* The ''
Centre Spatial Guyanais
The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...
(CSG)'' gets many visitors all year round.
* The ''Musée de l'Espace'' is a museum devoted to space and space exploration.
* The
Salvation Islands
The Salvation Islands (french: Îles du Salut, so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland; sometimes mistakenly called Safety Islands) are a group of small islands of volcanic origin about off the coast of Fre ...
: Of the three islands, only two,
Île Royale
The Salvation Islands (french: Îles du Salut, so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland; sometimes mistakenly called Safety Islands) are a group of small islands of volcano, volcanic origin about off the coa ...
and
Île Saint-Joseph
The Salvation Islands (french: Îles du Salut, so called because the missionaries went there to escape plague on the mainland; sometimes mistakenly called Safety Islands) are a group of small islands of volcanic origin about off the coast of Fre ...
, can be visited. The third is
Devil's Island
The penal colony of Cayenne ( French: ''Bagne de Cayenne''), commonly known as Devil's Island (''Île du Diable''), was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953 in the Salvation Islands ...
.
* ''Les Roches gravées'': Indigenous rock art, not far from the small industrial zone called Pariacabo.
* There are several marked public footpaths in the jungle, of which the most well-known and used is the one on the ''Montagne des Singes''.
* Kourou River: Many people go up the river on canoes or small boats to camp along the shore in open dwellings, or simply in hammocks.
* The ocean may not be clear (it is brown due to the Amazonian silt), but both it and the beaches are clean.
Popular culture
This Commune is also featured in the 2021 video game ''
Battlefield 2042
''Battlefield 2042'' is a first-person shooter, developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It is the twelfth main installment in the ''Battlefield'' series and was released on November 19, 2021, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Wind ...
'' as the setting of multiplayer map Orbital.
See also
*
Communes of French Guiana
The following is a list of the 22 communes in French Guiana, France.
The communes cooperate in the following intercommunalities (as of 2020):[Saramaka, French Guiana
Saramaka (also: Saramaca) is a neighbourhood of Kourou, French Guiana. The neighbourhood is mainly populated by Saramaka maroons from Suriname who settled in the area during the construction of the Guiana Space Centre.
Background
The Saramaka maro ...]
References
External links
Official site(in French)
''Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG)''''Musée de l'Espace''''Blada'' all-purpose message board and newspaper for Guiana in general and Kourou in particular (in French).
{{Authority control
Beaches of French Guiana
Communes of French Guiana