Historic Inner City of Paramaribo
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How it came to be
The name Paramaribo probably comes from a native village spelled Parmurbo in the earliest Dutch sources. In 1613 Nicolaes Baliestel and Dirck Claeszoon van Sanen set up a Dutch trading post here. The early posts were abandoned, and in 1650 settlers sent by the English governor of Barbados, Lord Willoughby, founded a town with a fort on the site.
In 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, a squadron under Abraham Crijnssen took the town, and the Treaty of Breda that year left Suriname to the Dutch. The fort was renamed Fort Zeelandia after the province that had paid for Crijnssen's fleet. The town was also renamed New Middelburg, but the name never caught on.
According to UNESCO, the original street plan of the 17th and 18th centuries survives intact, and the buildings show a gradual fusion of Dutch architecture with local techniques and materials. Fires repeatedly struck the town, destroying over 400 buildings in January 1821 and nearly 50 in September 1832. Paramaribo stayed the capital after independence in 1975, and its historic inner city was inscribed in 2002.
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