6 ATLASES

History of Guyana in maps

Guyana as it appears in 6 interactive history atlases, from 1750 to 2015: Guyana, Essequibo & Demerara, Essequibo-Demerara / Guyana. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.

Open this map in the interactive atlas →

WW2 is free in full, and chapter 1 of every atlas is free. A free account opens 3 more chapters a day. Starter, at $9 a month, opens all 21 with no daily limit — see the plans.

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Map of women’s rights in May 1970, showing Guyana — MAP OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN MAY 1970

These maps are reconstructed from published sources · Cliopatria v0.2.1 historical polities · ILO: Equal Remuneration Convention C100 · Natural Earth 1:10m countries and physical geography · Natural Earth 1:10m administrative references (US states and Berlin)

Source details

Cliopatria contributors / Seshat Global History Databank. CC BY 4.0 · Selected source records; component selection, documented unions and date proxies; projected for display.
International Labour Organization. Factual historical evidence; no source prose reproduced
Natural Earth. Public domain · Property selection and semantic ID normalization; full coordinates retained. An upstream Egyptian ring self-intersection is repaired with area change below 1e-9 square degrees; see natural-earth-admin0-review.json.
Natural Earth. Public domain

Modern reference outlines locate the historical thematic data. The underlying rights/protest classifications remain unchanged.

Germany uses dated East/West source extents together with a Berlin reference; Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union use reviewed historical extents. For Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, the 1953–68 references are retained where later Cliopatria records show military occupation rather than treaty-party territory.

reconstruction: 1953–1968 · reconstruction: 1958–1989; 1953–1972 · reconstruction: Cartographic device · vector: 1949–1990 · vector: 1953–1968 · vector: 1963–1975

Layer records and reconstruction methods

What was Guyana before it was Guyana? The sections below follow this land through every era covered by the Maps of History atlases: who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed. Each line links to the dated map. Modern borders serve as an approximation, as each atlas says on the map itself.

Guyana · Industrial Revolution

c. 1750

Colony or dependency — the opening position

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Essequibo & Demerara (mod. Guyana) · Age of Revolutions

APR 1775	Colonial possessions — the opening position
JAN 1804	Britain & its empire

AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →

Essequibo-Demerara / Guyana · Haiti and Kenya independence

Essequibo and Demerara were Dutch colonies where sugar and cotton grew on reclaimed coastal land. They passed to Britain in 1814. Nine years later, thousands of enslaved people rose in the Demerara rebellion, demanding the freedom they believed London had granted them. British Guiana became independent as Guyana in 1966.