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Lawrence Kemys wrote in his Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana of passing a river called " Shurinama" as he travelled along the coast. The earliest European sources give variants of "Suriname" as the name of the river on which colonies were eventually founded. The suffix -ame, common in Surinamese river and place names (see also the Coppename River), may come from aima or eima, meaning river or creek mouth, in Lokono, an Arawak language spoken in the country. The name Suriname may derive from an indigenous people called Surinen, who inhabited the area at the time of European contact. 2.6 Civil war, elections, and constitution.Sranan Tongo, an English-based creole language, is a widely used lingua franca. According to research by the Dutch Language Union, Dutch is the native language of 60% of Surinamese. It is the only sovereign nation outside of Europe where Dutch is the official and prevailing language of government, business, media, and education. Suriname is considered a culturally Caribbean country, and is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). On 25 November 1975, it left the Kingdom to become an independent state, but continues to maintain close economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties with it. In 1954, Suriname became one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the Dutch colonial period, Suriname was a lucrative source of sugar, its plantation economy driven by African slave labor and, after abolition of slavery in 1863, indentured servants from Asia. Europeans arrived in the 16th century, with the Dutch establishing control over much of the country's current territory by the late 17th century. Suriname was inhabited as early as the fourth millennium BC by various indigenous peoples, including the Arawaks, Caribs, and Wayana. A developing country with a relatively high level of human development, Suriname's economy is heavily dependent on its abundant natural resources, namely bauxite, gold, petroleum and agricultural products. Its extensive tree cover is vital to the country's efforts to mitigate climate change and maintain carbon negativity. Situated slightly north of the equator, Suriname is a tropical country dominated by rainforests. It has a population of approximately 575,990, most of whom live on the country's north coast, in and around its capital and largest city, Paramaribo. At just under 165,000 square kilometers (64,000 square miles), it is the smallest sovereign state in South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, and Brazil to the south. Suriname ( / ˈ sj ʊər ɪ n æ m, - n ɑː m/ ( listen)) or Surinam, officially known as the Republic of Suriname ( Dutch: Republiek Suriname ), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America.