KourouKourou

Francophone City Study

By Patrick Free

Why I Chose Kourou

I chose Kourou as my city to research because I thought that the space centre there was interesting. Another reason for choosing

Kourou was that it is not a city which people would think of when they think of France. I would like to go there because

there are lots of tourist attractions and it has an interesting culture.

Location

French Guiana is located in the north-east of South America, between Brazil and Suriname.

Kourou is roughly in the centre of the coastline.

Size and Population

• Size: 2,160 km²

• Population: 19,107 (As of last census)

How To Get There

• There is no airport in Kourou. The nearest airport is 50km away in Cayenne.

• The cheapest return flight from Auckland costs about $3500.

• Flight time is about 23 hours.• The flight stages usually look similar to this:

Auckland - Los Angeles - San Juan - Pointe-a-Pitre - Forte-de-France - Cayenne.

• The airlines are not always the same.

Geographic FeaturesKourou is surrounded by four hills: Carapa, Pariacabo, Café and Lombard. The Singes and Condamine mountains are also not far away. Kourou contains three lakes: Lake Bois Diable, Lake Marie-Claire and Lake Bois Chaudat.

Centre Spatial Guyanais

• CSG was opened in 1968.

• Facilities at CSG include launcher and satellite preparation buildings, launch facilities and a solid fuel factory. CSG covers a total of 850 square kilometres.

• The European Space Agency, the French space agency CNES, and Arianespace launch their satellites from CSG.

• Since Kourou is near the equator, CSG is a perfect place to launch rockets from. The Earth’s rotation gives extra speed to the launch, making it easier to steer into the desired position.

• CSG is protected from fire by a detachment of the Paris Fire Brigade. Security is provided by French Gendarmerie forces and the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment of the French Foreign Legion.

Places to go:

• Centre Spatial Guyanais.

• The Musée de l'Espace.

• The îles du Salut: Only two: Île Royale and Île Saint-Joseph, can be visited. The third is Devil's Island.

• Les Roches gravées: Indigenous rock art.

• The footpath in the rainforest on the Montagne des Singes.

• Kourou River: Great for canoeing.

The Dreyfus Tower on the Pointe des Roches.

Tourist Advice

Famous People

• There are no well known real people from Kourou, but there is a fictitious one. In The Blue Djinn of Babylon, by P.B. Kerr, Galibi Magãna is a poor Kourouan boy who works at the local dump, where he finds a crystal bottle in which an evil djinn is imprisoned.

CarnivalesqueThe Kourou carnavalesque

starts about two weeks before

the Rio carnaval and usually

consists of 20-30 local floats

and bands, as well as others

from all over French Guiana.

Many different cultures

participate, from places such as

Columbia, Argentina,

Brazil and France. The whole

town comes to watch the

parade.

History

In 1763 Great Britain took control of French

Guiana. The French then decided to send an

expedition there, consisting of about 10,000 people,

which settled in Kourou.

The failure of the Expedition and the death of around

6,000 of those who settled in Kourou earned French

Guiana the nickname Enfer Vert (Green Hell). The

population of Kourou did not rise above 20,000 until

the gold rush (in 1855), and the founding of the

prisons.

Resources

• Wikipedia

• Yahoo Farechase

• Lonelyplanet

• World Atlas