Cayenne

Spanish explorers passed this coast without settling, and a first French settlement of 1604 was destroyed by the Portuguese. French colonists returned in 1643, when the Amerindian chief Cépérou ceded the hill above the river mouth and a wooden fort went up on it, but attacks by the Indigenous population drove them out again. A permanent settlement dated only from 1664, and in the decade that followed the colony changed hands between the French, Dutch and English before returning to France. Between 1689 and 1693 the whole town was enclosed in fortifications designed by Vauban.

Cayenne became a municipality in 1790. In 1809 an Anglo-Portuguese force captured it, and it was administered from Brazil until 1817; the Portuguese tore down the bastions, and when the walls came down the space was laid out as a square that became Place des Palmistes. The parish church that is now the cathedral was built between 1825 and 1833. Cayenne was used as a penal colony from 1854 to 1938, and a convict settlement operated on Îlet la Mère offshore from 1852 to 1875.

In the 20th century came the covered market of 1907 and the town hall of 1924. A new deep-water port at Dégrad des Cannes replaced the congested old harbour in 1974, and the University of French Guiana became independent in 2014 after a strike over university funding. The population has grown dramatically, through immigration chiefly from the West Indies and Brazil and a high birth rate, and the city has spread far beyond its own small commune.

Cayenne is Creole at heart, and Carnival is its great event. The season runs from Epiphany to Ash Wednesday. Its roots lie in the European carnival held by the colonists, which enslaved people were forbidden to join; they held their own clandestine festivities instead. Each weekend costumed groups march to drums and brass around decorated floats, Brazilian samba bands and dragons join in, and families gather every week for king cake, filled with frangipane, cream, coconut or guava.

The Touloulou balls are peculiar to French Guiana. In dance halls known for the occasion as "universities", women disguised from head to toe as Touloulous choose their partners for the polka, mazurka, biguine and piké djouk, and the men cannot refuse; since the 1990s "tololo" nights have reversed the roles. The season ends with the Fat Days, when red devils fill the streets on Mardi Gras and Vaval, the carnival king, is buried on Ash Wednesday.

Beyond Carnival, the city's mix shows in its population — Creoles, metropolitan French, Haitians, Brazilians, Surinamese, Guyanese and Chinese — and in its monuments: the statue of Félix Éboué on Place des Palmistes, Gaston Monnerville in the botanical garden, and the square named after Victor Schœlcher, campaigner against slavery. The city's motto is "fert aurum industria", "work brings wealth".

At the 2023 census the commune of Cayenne had 62,675 inhabitants, while its wider urban area, as defined by INSEE, had 153,884 — about half the population of French Guiana. The commune, at 23.6 km², is the smallest in the territory, and the city now spreads far beyond its limits into neighbouring communes such as Remire-Montjoly and Matoury. A large share of residents were born outside French Guiana, most often in Haiti, Brazil, Suriname or Guyana.

Public administration, health and education dominate employment: the Andrée-Rosemon hospital is one of the territory's largest employers, and the Pasteur Institute's branch in the city researches tropical diseases. The port at Dégrad des Cannes handles almost all of French Guiana's imports and exports. Avenue du Général-de-Gaulle is the main shopping street, while the opening of French Guiana's first hypermarket in 2005 began to change how people shop.

Markets are held in the morning. Evenings bring people to Place des Palmistes, where food carts set up, and nightclubs lie on the periphery. On Sundays almost everything closes. Crime, the cost of living and unemployment are constant concerns.

Cayenne eats Creole food with Amazonian, Chinese, Brazilian and Javanese threads. Bouillon d'awara, the national dish of French Guiana, is a stew of awara palm pulp cooked for a day or more with smoked and salted meats, fish, prawns, greens and crab, traditionally eaten at Easter. Colombo, a Caribbean curry, fricassée, and grilled or fried fish are everyday fare, as are blaff — fish poached with lime, chilli and herbs — and couac and cassave, both made from cassava.

The covered market sells vegetables and meat, and the Marché d'Intérêt Régional sells fresh fish. In the evening, carts on Place des Palmistes serve sandwiches, juices and bami, Javanese noodles that reached Cayenne by way of Suriname. Restaurants around the centre reflect the city's mix: Creole, French, Chinese, Lebanese and Javanese.

Ti-punch — white rhum agricole, cane syrup and lime — is the aperitif. Punches and juices of maracuja and comou and locally distilled rum are the other drinks, and during Carnival every family table has its king cake.