Lelydorp is the capital city of Wanica district, located in Suriname. With a population of almost 19.000, it is the second city in Suriname, after Paramaribo.[1] It is located at around . It was originally called Kofi Djompo but was renamed by Cornelis Lely (the governor of Suriname in 1905)and since then it is known as Lelydorp. Cornelis Lely, who was responsible for many large water construction projects in the Netherlands, became the governor of Suriname. He was send to Suriname by the Dutch government to locate gold. Cornelis Lely, civil engineer, lived from September 23, 1854 to January 22, 1929. He was the designer of the famous Dutch waterworks, like the Zuiderzee Works, the Afsluitdijk, Flevoland polders and so on. Another famous man of the kind was Leeghwater. He lived from 1575 to 1650. He was a mill builder and hydraulic engineer. His developments are the basics for later projects of land winning. The Kofi Djompo story is about a marroon (an escaped slave) rebelleader called Kofi, who got captured by the Dutch oppressors and then decapitated. The Dutch took his head on a boat and attached it to a stick, this as a warning to the other slaves who also escaped and were wandering in the forest. It is told that when the boat reached the middle of the river, the head of Kofi jumped out the boat and disappeared. Kofi means born on Friday. Djompo means jump. So is Kofi Annan born on Friday, in Ghana. Lelydorp is more like a big village instead of a city. Wanica has a population of about 80,000 and an area of about 440 km². With a population of this size, Wanica is one of Suriname's most populated and most urbanised district. Wanica is divided in resorts: De Nieuwe Grond, Domburg, Houttuin, Koewarasan, Kwatta, Lelydorp, Saramacca Polder. In the fifties a test was made in Lelydorp with a medical center that also had to function as mini-hospital.
Lelydorp is also the most important stop halfway between Paramaribo and Zanderij where the Jopie Pengel Airport is located. Its population consists of a mixture of Indonesian Javanese, Hindustani, Creole, European and Portuguese Jews. Names of roads and street in Lelydorp, like Dessa Sidodadi, Tawajari, are typical original names from Indonesia. The small river "Tawajari Creek" divides Lelydorp from Saramacca.
