In 1498 French Guiana was first visited by Europeans when Christopher Columbus sailed to the region. It was settled by the French in 1604 and was the site of notorious penal settlements until 1951. The European Space Agency launches its communication satellites from Kourou.

French Guiana became an overseas départements of France on March 19, 1946.

After the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the French Guianese government closed all unsupervised roads in an attempt to prevent anthrax from passing across the border.