Paramaribo

The city is named for the Paramaribo tribe living at the mouth of the Suriname River; the name is from Tupi–Guarani para "large river" + maribo "inhabitants".

The name Paramaribo is probably a corruption of the name of a native village, spelled Parmurbo in the earliest Dutch sources. This was the location of the first Dutch settlement, a trading post established by Nicolaes Baliestel and Dirck Claeszoon van Sanen in 1613. English and French traders also tried to establish settlements in Suriname, including a French post established in 1644 near present-day Paramaribo. All earlier settlements were abandoned sometime before the arrival of English settlers in 1650 to found Surinam. They were sent by the English governor of Barbados, Lord Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, and established a town on the site of Paramaribo (though probably south of the current town center). The town was protected by a fort, called Fort Willoughby. …

The city is located on the Suriname River, approximately 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) inland from the Atlantic Ocean, in the Paramaribo district. Paramaribo features a tropical rainforest climate (Af), under the Köppen climate classification. Because Paramaribo is more subject to the Intertropical Convergence Zone than the trade winds and experiences no tropical cyclones, its climate is classified as equatorial. The city has no true dry season; all 12 months of the year average more than 60 millimetres or 2.4 inches of rainfall, but the city does experience noticeably wetter and drier periods during the year. The Northern Hemisphere "autumn" (September through November) is the driest period of the year in Paramaribo, and the heaviest rainfall occurs from April to July. …