there are too many guineas.

Guinea
French Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Papua New Guinea
Spanish Guinea
New Guinea
Equatorial Guinea
Gulf of Guinea
Guyana
French Guiana
British Guyana
not to mention guineas (old British money), guinea fowl, guinea pigs, guinea grass, and (my favorite) Guiness.

I’ve been confused by the abundance of Guineas in the world for a long time. Today, I decided to do a bit of research and figure out 1. why there are so dang prolific, and 2. how to differentiate between ‘em all.

I present to you my findings:

Etymology of Guinea: possibly from the Susu language spoken by inhabitants of coastal Guinea. The English comes from the Portuguese Guiné, a presumably indigenous African name. That, or it comes from a Berber term aguinaoui, which means ‘black’.

Okay.

That’s the Gulf of Guinea. Guinea is the indigenous name for this region right about where the perimeter of the country gets really bendy, south of the Sahara and north of the Gulf.

There are 3 African countries in the area that still keep the name Guinea:

- Guinea (formerly French Guinea)
- Guinea-Bissau (formerly Portuguese Guinea; Bissau is this Guinea’s capital)
- Equatorial Guinea (formerly Spanish Guinea)

Papua New Guinea (the eastern half of the island New Guinea) is that one famous for its cannibals, just north of Australia. The country acquired its name in the 19th century; the word "Papua" derives from Malay papuah describing the frizzy Melanesian hair. "New Guinea" comes from the Spanish explorer Íñigo Ortiz de Retes, who noted the resemblance of the local people to those he had earlier seen along the Guinea coast of Africa.

The Guyanas aren’t related to the Guineas, but they’re commonly confused anyways. The word Guyana is Amerindian and means ‘land of many waters’. There are two Guyanas in South America:
- Guyana (formerly British Guyana)
- French Guiana

So, there are really just 3 Guinea countries that come from 1 Guinea gulf region, 1 Guinea in the Pacific whose people looked kinda coastal Guinea-like, and 2 Guyanas on the other side of the world that get mixed up in the mess occasionally.

These countries all have really crazy colorful and interestingly colonial wikipedia histories, I discovered.

Guinea (formerly French Guinea) has at different times been part of various warring African empires. Portuguese slave started there in the 15th century; an Islamic state was founded in the 18th century, and then in 1890 France made it a colony. In 1958, Guinea became the first French African colony to gain independence, at the cost of the immediate ending of all French assistance. Since then – 50 years later – the country has had only 2 presidents, and it’s been messy, really messy.

Guinea-Bissau (formerly Portuguese Guinea) is a super tiny country (about the size of Maryland) and former Portuguese colony. In 1956, an armed rebellion against the Portuguese began, fueled by large quantities of arms from Cuba, China, and the Soviet Union. 17 years later, they finally managed to declare independence. They’ve had some civil wars and coups since then; G-B is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 2/3 of the population living below the poverty line. In G-B’s Bolama region, a matriarchal system is still in use; women choose husbands who are compelled to marry them, and religious affairs are controlled by a female priesthood.

Equatorial Guinea (formerly Spanish Guinea) – the only country in mainland Africa where Spanish is the official language. The first inhabitants of the region were probably Pygmies; the Fang and Bubi tribes are prominent now. Oil was just discovered there in the last decade, and EG has now become one of the largest oil producers in Africa – but most of the population still lives in poverty. The government is corrupt; diplomats and even ministers have been caught smuggling drugs (even using the president’s baggage on state trips). There are no daily newspapers, just radio – the president has declared that he is “in permanent contact with the Almighty” and “can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell because it is God himself...who gives him this strength”. Nice.

Papua New Guinea: follow closely – the island of New Guinea contains Papua New Guinea (its own independent country) on the eastern half, and then two Indonesian provinces (Papua and West Irian Jaya) in the west. PNG is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, with over 850 indigenous languages and at least as many traditional societies, out of a population of just under 6 million. It is also one of the most rural (only 18 per cent of its people live in urban centres) and one of the world's least explored. PNG gained independence from Australia in 1975 and is a member of the Commonwealth today. Other interesting things: cannibalism was practiced amongst some tribes until the early 1970s...seashells were abolished as currency in 1933...and the country has the highest incidence of HIV & AIDS in the Pacific region.

Guyana (formerly British Guyana): the only nation state of the Commonwealth of Nations on the mainland of South America (it gained its independence from the UK in 1966). The abolition of slavery in 1834 led to black settlement of urban areas and the importation of indentured laborers from Portugal, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Malta, China and India to work on the sugar plantations. Today, the majority of the population are of East Indian ancestry.
Other facts to note:
- The murder rate in Guyana is three times higher than the murder rate in the United States.
- The 1856 British Guiana 1c magenta stamp is considered the rarest in the world, with only one copy known to exist (the other having been destroyed by a previous owner).
- On November 18, 1978, the Jonestown Massacre took place in the jungle of Northwest Guyana; 913 members (all American) of the Peoples Temple cult died in a mass suicide.

French Guiana is an ‘overseas department’ of France located in South America - this means it’s part of the European Union's territory, and its currency is the euro. Guianese Creoles and Haitians make up 60% to 70% of the population; roughly 14% are Europeans, the vast majority of whom are French. That’s all...just weird that there’s a bit of Europe in South America. I didn’t know that.