Portal:Venezuela
The Venezuela PortalVenezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and various islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It comprises an area of 912,050 km2 (352,140 sq mi), with a population estimated at 31.8 million in 2025. The capital and largest urban agglomeration is Caracas. The continental territory is bordered on the north by the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Colombia, Brazil on the south, Trinidad and Tobago to the north-east, and on the east by Guyana. Venezuela consists of 23 states, the Capital District, and federal dependencies covering Venezuela's offshore islands. Venezuela is among the most urbanized countries in Latin America; the vast majority of Venezuelans live in the cities of the north and in the capital. The territory of Venezuela was colonized by Spain in 1522, amid resistance from indigenous peoples. In 1811, it became one of the first Spanish-American territories to declare independence from the Spanish and to form part of the first federal Republic of Colombia (Gran Colombia). It separated as a fully sovereign country in 1830. During the 19th century, Venezuela suffered political turmoil and autocracy, remaining dominated by regional military dictators until the mid-20th century. From 1958, the country had a series of democratic governments, as an exception where most of the region was ruled by military dictatorships, and the period was characterized by economic prosperity. Economic shocks in the 1980s and 1990s led to major political crises and widespread social unrest, including the deadly Caracazo riots of 1989, two attempted coups in 1992, and the impeachment of a president for embezzlement of public funds charges in 1993. Confidence in the existing political parties collapsed during the 1998 Venezuelan presidential election, in which Hugo Chávez was elected and which became the catalyst for the Bolivarian Revolution. During the 1999 Constituent Assembly, a new Constitution of Venezuela was written and ratified. Venezuela is officially a federal presidential republic, but has experienced democratic backsliding into an authoritarian state under the Chávez and Maduro administrations. It ranks poorly on international measurements of freedom of the press, civil liberties, and control of corruption. Venezuela is a developing country, has the world's largest known oil reserves, and has been one of the world's leading exporters of oil. Previously, the country was an underdeveloped exporter of agricultural commodities such as coffee and cocoa, but oil quickly came to dominate exports and government revenues. Venezuela struggles with hyperinflation, shortages of basic goods, unemployment, poverty, disease, high child mortality, malnutrition, environmental issues, severe crime, widespread corruption, and U.S. sanctions which have precipitated the Venezuelan refugee crisis where more than 7.9 million people had fled the country. The crisis in Venezuela has contributed to a rapidly deteriorating human rights situation. (Full article...) Selected article -Venezuela sent a delegation to compete at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy from 10 to 26 February 2006. This was the third time Venezuela had competed at a Winter Olympic Games. The Venezuelan delegation consisted of one luge athlete, Werner Hoeger. He finished 32nd in his only event, the men's singles. (Full article...) Selected picture
The San Carlos de la Barra Fortress is a seventeenth century star fort protecting Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, one of a number of coastal fortifications built by the Spanish in colonial times. It was built in 1623 with limestone rocks, brought from the Island of Toas, at the entrance to the Maracaibo bar.
Selected biography -Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and con man who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; more than half of them died. Seen as a contributory factor to the "Panic of 1825", MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history. From the Clan Gregor, MacGregor was an officer in the British Army from 1803 to 1810; he served in the Peninsular War. He joined the republican side in the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1812, quickly became a general and, over the next four years, operated against the Spanish on behalf of both Venezuela and its neighbour New Granada. His successes included a difficult month-long fighting retreat through northern Venezuela in 1816. He captured Amelia Island in 1817 under a mandate from revolutionary agents to conquer Spanish Florida, and there proclaimed a short-lived "Republic of the Floridas". He then oversaw two calamitous operations in New Granada during 1819 that each ended with his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command. (Full article...) In this month...
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Selected list -This is a list of the bird species recorded in Venezuela. The avifauna of Venezuela has 1414 confirmed species, of which 44 are endemic, six have been introduced by humans, 48 are rare or vagrants, and one has been extirpated. An additional 20 species are unconfirmed (see below). Except as an entry is cited otherwise, the list of species is that of the South American Classification Committee (SACC). The list's taxonomic treatment (designation and sequence of orders, families, and species) and nomenclature (common and scientific names) are also those of the SACC unless noted otherwise. Capitalization within English names follows Wikipedia practice, i.e. only the first word of a name is capitalized unless a place name such as São Paulo is used. (Full article...) Current events
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