Oiapoque is a Brazilian municipality located in the far north of the state of Amapá. This is also the name given to the river that delimits the border between Brazil and French Guiana, which rises in the Tumucumaque mountains and flows into the Atlantic Ocean.
The word Oiapoque comes from tupi-guarany, being derived from the term "oiap-hollow" and means "house of the Waiapis” or “house of warriors or relatives”. The municipality of Oiapoque is about 500 km from the capital of Amapá, Macapá, making debt with Saint George, a small village colonized by the French.
The municipality was created in 1945, through Bill No. 7,578, of 25 May, and received this name precisely by the predominant presence of the descendants of the Waiãpi peoples, who occupied the entire area of the extension of the Oiapoque river ("house of the Waiãpis").
Formerly, the Oiapoque River was called "Vicente Pizon", in honor of the Spanish explorer who discovered and traveled throughout the region.
The Portuguese and the French signed in 1713 the Treaty of Utrecht, which established a limit of division between the two colonies, the river Oiapoque (or Vicente Pinzón, at the time) was the point that established the line border.
However, conflicts continued between the two countries over possession of the region. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century, with the initiative of the Baron of Rio Branco (José Maria da Silva Paranhos), that the issue was resolved, through the signing of the Swiss Report.
In Brazil, the expression "from Oiapoque to Chuí" is very popular and is used to define the level of coverage of something in the country, something that goes "from north to south" (Chui is a city located in the extreme south of Brazil, in the state of Rio Grande do South). Popularly, the cities of Oiapoque and Chuí are the two most extreme points in Brazil.