ARIN formerly covered Argentina, Aruba, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Dutch West Indies, Ecuador, El Salvador, Falkland Islands ( UK ), French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela until LACNIC was formed.

In 1853, gold was discovered in the interior, precipitating border disputes with Brazil and Suriname ( these were later settled in 1891, 1899 and 1915, though a small region of the border with Suriname is still disputed ).

However, the dispute with Suriname was arbitrated by the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea and a ruling in favor of Guyana was announced in September, 2007.

Suriname and Indonesia became independent of the Netherlands in the period of decolonization: Suriname in 1975 and Indonesia in 1945 ( it was not until 16 August 2005 that the Dutch government recognized 1945-and not 1949-as the country's year of independence ).

Suriname was ranked the 124th safest investment destination in the world in the March 2011 Euromoney Country Risk rankings.

In 1976-1977 a 100 km long single track railway was constructed by Morrison-Knudsen Co. in West Suriname from the bauxite containing Bakhuis Mountains to the town of Apoera on the Corantijn river, to transport bauxite by river to processing plants elsewhere.

Suriname elected a new government in May 2000, but until it was replaced, the Wijdenbosch government continued its loose fiscal and monetary policies.

This stretch was constructed as part of the West Suriname Plan.

After the creation of the Statute of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Royal Netherlands Army was entrusted with the defence of Suriname, while the defence of the Netherlands Antilles was the responsibility of the Royal Netherlands Navy.

Since 2002 The Hague co-operates with Suriname and in 2009 a co-operation contract was made with the Moroccan provinces of Nador, Al Hoceima and Taza.

The name was also used in Suriname, where they founded Batavia, Suriname, and in the United States where they founded the city and the town of Batavia, New York.

The European colony in Suriname was founded in the 1650s by Lord Francis Willoughby, the British governor of Barbados.

In 1683 Suriname was sold to the Dutch West India Company.

England controlled Suriname during the Napoleonic Wars from 1799 until 1816, when it was returned to the Dutch.

Present-day Suriname was the home to many distinct indigenous cultures.

On 31 July 1667, the English and Dutch signed the Treaty of Breda, in which for the time being the status quo was respected: the Dutch could keep occupying Suriname and the British the formerly Dutch colony New Amsterdam ( modern day New York ).

Willoughbyland was renamed Suriname.

This arrangement was made official in the Treaty of Westminster of 1674, after the British had regained and again lost Suriname in 1667 and the Dutch regained the colony in 1668.

In 1683 the Society of Suriname was set up, modelled on the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert to profit from the management and defence of the Dutch Republic's colony.

* 1980 – The Suriname government is overthrown by a military coup which is initiated with the bombing of the police station from an army ship off the coast of the nation's capital, Paramaribo

It is now possible to travel overland to Suriname by taking the ferry on the Guyana side at Moleson Creek and crossing the Corentyne River over to Suriname at South Drain.

All of the area west of the Essequibo River claimed by Venezuela ; Suriname claims area east of the New Upper Courantyne.

* 1863 – Keti Koti ( Emancipation Day ) in Suriname, marking the abolition of slavery by the Netherlands.

Suriname has a tropical environment, and is moderated by strong trade winds.

However, proposals for exploitation of the country's tropical forests and undeveloped regions of the interior traditionally inhabited by indigenous and Maroon communities have raised the concerns of environmentalists and human rights activists both in Suriname and abroad.

Internet services in Suriname are provided by a number of internet service providers.

The Armed Forces of Suriname were engaged in a domestic war, against a few hundred freedom fighters who named themselves " Jungle Commandos " led by Ronnie Brunswijk between 1986 and 1992.

With an area of approximately, Uruguay is the second-smallest nation in South America by area, after Suriname.

* December 24 – Ramsewak Shankar is ousted as President of Suriname by a military coup.

* Paramaribo, Suriname is first settled by the British.

Many of the Dutch settlements were lost or abandoned by the end of that century, but the Netherlands managed to retain possession of Suriname until it gained independence in 1975, as well as the former Netherlands Antilles, of which the islands remain within the Kingdom of the Netherlands today.

The Dutch traded with the Indian peoples and, as in Suriname, established sugar plantations worked by African slaves.

A plantation in Suriname by Dirk Valkenburg ( 1707?

A contemporary description of the war between the Maroons and the plantation owners in Suriname can be found in Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam by John Gabriel Stedman.

The Dutch initially accepted the new government, however, relations between Suriname and the Netherlands collapsed when 15 members of the political opposition were killed by the army on December 8, 1982, in Fort Zeelandia.

* Suriname, constant guerrilla warfare by Maroons, in 1765-1793 by the Aluku led by Boni

Though an attempt was made to likewise capture the Dutch Leeward Antilles, these remained in Dutch hands, as did Suriname, though neighboring Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo were rapidly taken by the British early in 1781.

The Guiana Shield underlies Guyana ( previously British Guiana ), Suriname ( previously Dutch Guiana ) and French Guiana ( or Guyane ), as well as parts of Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil.

The 1899 arbitration award settling the British Guiana — Venezuela border made reference to the border with Suriname as continuing to the source of the Courantyne River, which it named as the Kutari River.

The Suriname colonial government, and after 1975 the independent Suriname government, maintained the Dutch position ; while the British Guiana Government, and later the independent Guyanese government, maintained the British position.

The future of Trinidad, British Guiana and Suriname, and British and French possessions in the Leeward Islands were left open for negotiations with Germany after the war.

Although the Dutch colony of Surinam has always been officially known as Surinam or Suriname, in both Dutch and English, the colony was often unofficially and semi-officially referred to as Dutch Guiana ( Dutch: Nederlands Guiana ) in the 19th and 20th century, in an analogy to British Guiana and French Guiana.

Using this term for Suriname is problematic, however, as historically Suriname was only one of many Dutch colonies in the Guianas, others being Berbice, Essequibo, Demerara, and Pomeroon, which after being taken over by the United Kingdom in 1814, were united into British Guiana in 1831.

Ultimately Indians were mainly used, shipped to many Indian Ocean islands, East and South Africa, Fiji, British Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Grenada, Suriname and Panama and other places.

Between 1838 and 1917, at least " 238, 909 Indians were introduced into British Guiana, 143, 939 into Trinidad, 42, 326 into Guadeloupe, 37, 027 into Jamaica, 34, 304 into Suriname, 25, 209 into Martinique, 8, 472 into French Guiana, 4, 354 into Saint Lucia, 3, 206 into Grenada, 2, 472 into Saint Vincent, 337 into Saint Kitts, 326 into Saint Croix, and 315 into Nevis.

* The British Army first uses shrapnel shells (" spherical case shot "), invented by Major Henry Shrapnel, in action, against the Dutch in Suriname.

In 1674 the fort and New Orange was turned back over to the British in the Treaty of Westminster ( 1674 ) which ended the war ( the Dutch got Suriname ).

He rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the 5th Battalion of the 60th Regiment of Foot, the first rifle-armed unit of the British Army, commanding the unit during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the capture of Suriname in 1799.

Fort Zeelandia is a fortress in Paramaribo, Suriname, that was built by British colonists ( originally called Fort Willoughby ) in 1651 around a small trading post, created by the Dutch.

It later returned to the Dutch as Nieuw-Amsterdam, later called New York, had been traded for Suriname with the British Empire and it was given its present name in 1667.

The area, and the city of Paramaribo, switched between Dutch and British control until the Treaty of Breda at the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War ceded all of Suriname to the Dutch.