Much of the land is forested, some of it low, some of it low plateau and mountains. In the west center the land rises to the Pakaraima chain, the eastern end of a block of the Guiana Highlands. Here trees largely give way to grasslands. Along the coast is a swamp plain, with extensive man-made water controls to hold back floods. Except in the northwest four rivers flow south to north. The most important is the Esequibo, whose left bank tributaries like the Cuyuni and the Mazaruni drain the highlands. One fall, Kaieteur, while not the nation's highest, is its most famous.
Further east the Demerara starts near the nation's center. The Berbice drains much of the eastern third of Guyana, with the Corentyne(1) marking the border with Surinam(2).
Almost everyone speaks Guyanese Creole English. Standard English is the official language, though not a signficant local mother tongue. Probably the majority are Christian, about one-third Hindus, and less than one in ten Moslems. Of the Christians more than two-thirds are Protestants, including Anglicans. The remainder are Roman Catholics.
The nation is too small to have a city of a million, but more than one fourth of the nation lives in Georgetown, the capital. This sits at the mouth of the Demerara, on tidal flats, with many buildings on stilts.
Before 1600 everyone spoke languages that Joseph Greenberg groups as Amerindian; some still speak them. Within this controversial category are two agreed on groups: the Carib and the Arawakan. The Arawakan group is represented by two languages, Arawak proper and Aruma, both in the Northern Maipuran group. The Carib group is represented by six languages, all in the Northern Carib group, including Carib proper. I do not know the original religions of these groups.
Dutch and English invaders arrived in the 17th century and brought large numbers of slaves from Africa, as well as Christianity. English rule later also brough immigrants from India: Bhojpuri(3) and Urdu(4) speakers, and brought Hinduism and Islam. The Asian languages diminished to relative unimportance as the newer arrivals adopted the form of English created by the descendents of slaves, and participated in its further change.
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(1) Called the Corantijn in Surinam.
(2) Officially Suriname.
(3) Sometimes considered a Hindi dialect.
(4) Sometimes considered, along with Hindi, to be the single language of Hindi-Urdu.