Guiana Amazonian Park

Guiana Amazonian Park (French: Parc amazonien de Guyane) is a national park in French Guiana and France's largest park. With an area of 33,900 km², the takes up most of the land area of French Guiana, with that number being a good 41% of the French department. As French Guiana is an overseas department of France, it means that the European Union's largest national park isn't in France, but instead in South America!

Settlements

A village in the park

While a national park, there are still many communes within the park, and within the communes are several smaller settlements. Contrary to the typical settlement in a national park (e.g. Yosemite Village in Yosemite National Park, Thredbo in Kosciuszko National Park, Banff in Banff National Park or Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park), these are traditional villages that are isolated, and these were not established as tourist towns; these villages are the homes of the Indigenous peoples who live in the current boundaries of the park. The main communes of the park as follows:

• 1 Camopi
• 2 Kulumuli (Twenkë)
• 3 Maripa-Soula
• 4 Papaïchton
• 5 Saül
• 6 Trois Sauts

Understand

Visitor information

While the park does have a website in both English and French, the English website may not work properly and the French website has much more detailed information. Even if you knew no French, you're much better off going to the French website and then machine translating it.

• Park website (in English)
• Park website (in French)

Get in

Guiana Amazonian Park is very off the beaten track; access is only via an aeroplane or a pirogue as there is no road access to the rest of French Guiana or anywhere else for that mater. Furthermore, there are few airports or landing strips, and services are very limited. All services that operate to these airports are operated by Air Guyane Express.

• 1 Maripasoula Airport (MPY  ^IATA). (updated Jul 2022)
• 2 Saül Airport (XAU  ^IATA). (updated Jul 2022)

See

• 1 Forêt guyanaise. An important French forest massif occupying 8 million hectares and covers most of French Guiana. It's the only large tropical forest in the European Union. (updated Dec 2021)
• 2 Massif du Mitaraka (Mitaraka massif). A mountain range in the southwest of French Guiana, culminating on the border between Guyana and Brazil at an altitude of 690 m, about 11 km as the crow flies southeast of the Brazil-Guyana-Suriname tripoint from Koulimapopann. It separates the waters going towards the basin of the Alitani River (or the Litani) towards the north and the Brazilian waters towards the south. (updated Dec 2021)

Eat

• 1 Gîte-Restaurant A Ké Nou, ☏ +594 694 97 00 93, gite.resto.akenou@gmail.com. Restaurant serving French–Guianese cuisine in a traditional building with both outdoor and indoor dining. (updated Dec 2021)

Sleep

Lodging

• 1 Hébergement touristique Lé Tikaz, Bourg de Saül, ☏ +594 694 27 85 77, hebergementletikaz@gmail.com. Accommodation in a traditional type of French Guianese hut style house. (updated Dec 2021)
• Hôtel Le Magnolia (in Papaïchton), ☏ +594 594 37 30 04. Basic hotel with bathrooms. (updated Jul 2022)

Respect

There are many villages within Guiana Amazonian Park that may be in the middle of nowhere. While access is limited, unless you have good reason to, make sure to ask permission before visiting. If you are visiting, never take photographs without asking permission as it's considered disrespectful to do so.

Go next

Your only option is to go out and explore the rest of French Guiana.