Guineas

Guineas is a term with several distinct historical and regional uses. In geography, it refers to a historic West African coastal region along the Gulf of Guinea. The term appeared in European writings from the 15th century to designate areas roughly including parts of present-day Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the coastal states of the region, sometimes grouped as Lower Guinea and Upper Guinea. Today the region is described by individual country names rather than as a single political entity, though the historical phrase survives in some older texts and regional histories.

In currency, the guinea was a British monetary unit and gold coin first minted in the 17th century. It was valued at 21 shillings, or one pound and one shilling. The guinea was widely used in pricing for luxury goods, professional fees, and horse racing rather than as everyday currency. It began to fade from circulation in the early 19th century during monetary reforms, and by the 1820s-1830s it had largely ceased to function as coinage, though the term persisted as a price unit in certain contexts into the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The plural form “guineas” therefore primarily appears in historical or regional contexts. The modern demonym for people from Guinea is Guinean or Guineans; “guineas” is not typically used to refer to a population. When encountered, the term usually signals a historical currency or a geographic reference within historical writings about West Africa.