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History of French Guiana
====French Guiana was originally inhabited by American people, but was settled by France in the 17th century. After the Treaty of Paris 1763 King Louis XV sent 12,000 settlers over to French Guiana, and one and a half years later only a few hundred survived. Since then, the island was know as //Île du Diable//, or Devil's Island and was used for penal settlements from 1852 to 1951. A penal colony is a settlement that is used to exile prisoners, in this case the island of French Guiana was a distant place that would separate the prisoners from the public.==== ====In 1809, a Portuguese-British naval squadron took French Guiana for the Portuguese empire. Although the island was returned to France with the Treaty of Paris in 1814, a Portuguese presence remained until 1817.====

Geography of French Guiana
====French Guiana has two main geographical regions: a costal strip where the majority of the population is, and dense, near-inaccessible rainforest. The tallest mountain in French Guiana is Bellevue de I'lnini at 851 miles high. Some other mountains include Mont Machalou (782 m), Pic Coudreau (711 m), Mont St Marcel (635 m) Mont Favard (200 m) and Montagne du Mahury (156 m). French Guiana also has many rivers. As of 2007, the Amazonian forest located in the most remote part of the department is now protected through one of the nine national parks of France, the Guiana Amazonian Park. The park covers 13,090 square miles.====