Laarwijk is a settlement and a former sugar

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...

in the

Commewijne District Commewijne is a district of Suriname, located on the right bank of the Suriname River. Commewijne's capital city is Nieuw Amsterdam. Tamanredjo is another major town, while Meerzorg is the most populated. The district has a population of 31,420 ...

Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...

. Laarwijk is situated along the Suriname River and can only be reached by boat (via Domburg).

History

Laarwijk was founded in 1737. The government bought the plantation on 5 August 1899, and allocated it for small-scale agriculture. In 2020 plans were announced to build a bridge between Laarwijk and Domburg in order to develop the area, and relieve traffic congestion in Wanica and Commewijne. Traffic up to now has to use the

Jules Wijdenbosch Bridge The Jules Wijdenbosch Bridge ( Dutch: ''Jules Wijdenboschbrug''), also called Suriname bridge and known locally as Bosje Brug, is a bridge over the Suriname River between the capital city Paramaribo and Meerzorg in the Commewijne District. The b ...

between

Paramaribo Paramaribo (; ; nicknamed Par'bo) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's ...

and Meerzorg.

Economy

After years of political prevarication in January 2010, Laarwijk has received a connection to the

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...

grid. A cable is pulled from Domburg under the Suriname River. A generator which was installed just before the elections in 1996, had never produced a single kilowatt.

Notable people

* Eugène Drenthe (1925–2009), poet and playwright.

References

* Parts of the article have been translated from Laarwijk article on the Dutch Wikipedia, version on 27 May 2008.

External links

* Populated places in Commewijne District {{Suriname-geo-stub