Geography of Suriname

thumb|right|270px|Topographic map of Suriname and [[Exclusive economic zone|EEZ (exclusive economic zone).]]

Suriname is located in the northern part of South America and is part of Caribbean South America, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between French Guiana and Guyana. It is mostly covered by tropical rainforest, containing a great diversity of flora and fauna that, for the most part, are increasingly threatened by new development. There is a relatively small population, most of which live along the coast.

There are currently two unresolved border disputes that affect the geography of Suriname, namely the Tigri Area in the southwestern region near Guyana and also the Marouini/Litani region with French Guiana in the southeast.

Location

Geographic coordinates:

Continent:

South America

Area

Total:

Land:

Water:

Area - comparative:

See order of magnitude 1 E+11 m². Slightly larger than Tunisia.

Land boundaries

thumb|270px|Suriname with the disputed areas, including the [[Tigri Area controlled by Guyana and southeastern area controlled by French Guiana.]]

thumb|270px|Suriname (circa 1914) in the Encyclopedia of the Dutch West Indies, by Surinamese cartographer [[Herman Benjamins and Dutch ethnographer Johannes Snelleman.]]

Total:

Border countries:

Brazil -
French Guiana -
Guyana -

Coastline:

Maritime claims

Exclusive economic zone:

and

Territorial sea:

Climate and climate change

Suriname has a tropical rainforest climate and a tropical monsoon climate, with hot humid conditions year-round.

Climate change in both Suriname and the wider world is leading to hotter temperatures and more extreme weather. As a fairly poor country, its contributions to global climate change have been limited. Suriname has a large forest cover, the country has been running a carbon negative economy since 2014. Hotter temperatures and changes in precipitation trends are predicted because of climate change.

Terrain

Most of the country is made up of rolling hills, but there is a narrow coastal plain that has swampy terrain.

A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 781 km² of tidal flats in Suriname, making it the 34th ranked country in terms of tidal flat area.

Elevation extremes

Lowest point: Unnamed location in the coastal plain - below Sea Level.

Highest point: Juliana Top -

Natural resources

Timber, hydropower, fish, forests, hydroelectric potential, kaolin, shrimp, bauxite and gold. Small amounts of nickel, copper, platinum and iron ore. It also has sizeable oil.

Deforestation

Tree cover extent and loss

Global Forest Watch publishes annual estimates of tree cover loss and 2000 tree cover extent derived from time-series analysis of Landsat satellite imagery in the Global Forest Change dataset. In this framework, tree cover refers to vegetation taller than 5 m (including natural forests and tree plantations), and tree cover loss is defined as the complete removal of tree cover canopy for a given year, regardless of cause.

For Suriname, country statistics report cumulative tree cover loss of from 2001 to 2024 (about 2.1% of its 2000 tree cover area).

The first assessed forest reference emission level (FREL), submitted in 2018, covered reducing emissions from deforestation and reducing emissions from forest degradation at national scale. Using historical data for 2000-2015, the modified and assessed FREL set annual benchmark values for 2016-2020 of 14,627,465, 15,591,284, 16,555,103, 17,518,922 and 18,482,741 t CO2 eq per year. The technical assessment states that it included above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass and deadwood, excluded litter and soil organic carbon, and reported CO2 together with CH4 and N2O emissions from deforestation. The technical assessment states that it again included above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass and deadwood, excluded litter and soil organic carbon, and reported gross CO2 emissions together with CH4 and N2O emissions from forest fires.