Paramaribo

Chief port and capital of Suriname, on the west bank of the Suriname River 24 km/15 mi inland from the Atlantic coast; population (2007 est) 226,100. Products include coffee, fruit, timber, and bauxite, and tourism is a significant source of revenue.

Originally an American Indian village, Paramaribo was settled by the French in about 1640. The British colonial administrator Francis Willoughby founded the first successful colony on the west bank of the River Suriname in 1651 with the establishment of a sugar and tobacco plantation economy. Following the second Anglo-Dutch war, Paramaribo was ceded to the Dutch in the Treaty of Breda of 1667 in exchange for the North American settlement of New Amsterdam, now New York, and remained under Dutch rule until 1975 except for two periods during the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1802 and 1804–1815).

Notable features include the Dutch colonial architecture, the 17th-century Fort Zeelandia, and Peter and Paul Cathedral (1885), which is built entirely of wood.

Paramaribo

Urban district in northern Suriname, and part of the Paramaribo federal capital, bounded to the north by the Atlantic; area 32 sq km/12 sq mi; population (1996) 169,798.

There are many attractive colonial buildings in the district.