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Feb 25, 2021 · Venezuela is located on the northern edge of South America. It is geographically positioned in the Northern and Western hemispheres of the Earth. Venezuela is bordered by Brazil to the south; by Guyana to the east; by Colombia to the west and southwest.
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Venezuela, country located at the northern end of South America. It occupies a roughly triangular area that is larger than the combined areas of France and Germany. Venezuela is bounded by the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Guyana to the east, Brazil to the south, and Colombia to the southwest and west. The national capital, Caracas, is Venezuela’s primary centre of industry, commerce, education, and tourism.
Venezuela administers a number of Caribbean islands and archipelagos, among which are Margarita Island, La Blanquilla, La Tortuga, Los Roques, and Los Monjes. Since the early 19th century Venezuela has claimed jurisdiction over Guyanese territory west of the Essequibo River totaling some 53,000 square miles (137,000 square km)—nearly two-thirds of the land area of Guyana. Venezuela also has had a long dispute with Colombia over the delimitation of maritime boundaries in the Gulf of Venezuela and around the archipelago of Los Monjes.
A physiographically diverse country, Venezuela incorporates the northern Andean mountain chains and interior highlands, the main portions of the Orinoco River basin with its expansive Llanos (plains), Lake Maracaibo, which is the largest lake in South America, and the spectacular Angel Falls, the world’s highest waterfall. The republic’s development pattern has been unique among Latin American countries in terms of the speed, sequence, and timing of economic and demographic growth. In the 20th century Venezuela was transformed from a relatively poor agrarian society to a rapidly urbanizing one, a condition made possible by exploiting huge petroleum reserves. These changes, however, were accompanied by imbalances among the country’s regions and socioeconomic groups, and Venezuela’s cities swelled because of a massive and largely uncontrolled migration from rural areas, as well as mass immigration, much of it illegal, from Colombia and other neighbours.
Venezuela, like many other Latin American countries, has a high percentage of urban poverty, a massive foreign debt, and widespread governmental patronage and corruption. Venezuela’s social and political ills have been compounded by natural disasters such as the floods that devastated sections of Caracas, La Guaira, and other coastal areas in late 1999. On the other hand, from 1958 to the early 21st century the republic was more democratic and politically stable than most other Latin American nations, and its economy benefited from a thriving petroleum industry that capitalized on the world’s largest known oil reserves. Venezuela’s position in the world became more precarious during the second decade of the 21st century as a result of the controversial rule of revolutionary leader Hugo Chávez, a significant decline in the fortunes of its petroleum industry, and the increasing authoritarianism of Chávez’s successor, Nicholás Maduro.
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The Venezuelan landscape includes towering mountains, tropical jungles, broad river plains, and arid coastal plains, all of which provide a diversity of natural habitats and a range of challenges to social integration and economic development.
Venezuela’s topography can be divided into three broad elevational divisions: the lowland plains, which rise from sea level to about 1,650 feet (500 metres), the mountains, which reach elevations of some 16,400 feet (5,000 metres), and the interior forested uplands, with scattered peaks above 6,550 feet (2,000 metres). Within these broad divisions, seven physiographic regions can be distinguished: the islands and coastal plains, including the Orinoco delta; the Lake Maracaibo Lowlands; the Mérida and Perijá ranges of the Andes Mountains; the coastal mountain system (with its Coastal and Interior ranges); the northwestern valleys and hill ranges, also called the Segovia Highlands; the Llanos; and the Guiana Highlands.
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The islands and coastal plains are located in the north. They include the Caribbean “Islands to the Leeward,” such as Margarita and La Tortuga, and several peninsulas, including the head-shaped Paraguaná in the northwest and, in the northeast, Araya and Paria, the latter a finger of land pointing at Trinidad. The coastal plains extend from the Colombian border and the Gulf of Venezuela eastward to the foothills of the coastal mountains, which are broken in the east by the Unare River basin. Farther east is the Orinoco delta, which opens onto the Atlantic Ocean through a number of distributaries (caños); an early gateway to the settlement of the interior, it is a low, dank, and swampy area heavily dissected by streams.
The two branches of the Andes that traverse northwestern Venezuela, including the country’s highest peaks, are northeastward extensions of the Colombian Andes’ Cordillera Oriental. The western branch, known as the Perijá Mountains (Sierra de Perijá, or Serranía de los Motilones), runs along the border with Colombia, whereas the eastern branch, the Cordillera de Mérida, extends from the border to Lara state and divides the Lake Maracaibo basin from that of the Orinoco River. Physiographically, the Segovia Highlands, northwest of Barquisimeto, and the coastal ranges may also be considered parts of the Andes chain. The highest point in the Venezuelan Andes is Bolívar Peak (La Columna), which rises to 16,332 feet (4,978 metres) in the Cordillera de Mérida. Between the high Andean ranges are Lake Maracaibo and its associated lowlands; this basin is one of the main oil-producing regions of the country.
The coastal mountain system, in effect two parallel ranges—the Coastal Range and the Interior Range—contains Venezuela’s greatest concentration of population, although it covers only a tiny fraction of the national territory. In the intermontane valleys are the major cities of Caracas, Valencia, and Maracay, and all but the steepest slopes are populated. Naiguatá Peak, at 9,072 feet (2,765 metres), is the highest point in the coastal system.
Topographic map of Venezuela. Venezuela is located in the north of South America; geologically, its mainland rests on the South American Plate. It has a total area of 916,445 km 2 (353,841 sq mi) and a land area of 882,050 km 2 (340,560 sq mi), making Venezuela the 33rd largest country in the world.
Venezuela relief map, showing the country's plains, hills, lakes and rivers. The map shows Venezuela, officially, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a country in northern South America, with a coastline at the Caribbean Sea in the north and the North Atlantic Ocean in the east.
Language: Spanish. Neighbors: Brazil, Colombia, Dominica, Dominican Republic, France, Grenada, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom and United States. Categories: sovereign state and locality. Location: South America. View on OpenStreetMap.
Venezuela is a country in South America, bordering the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, between Colombia and Guyana. It is situated on major sea and air routes linking North and South America.
Venezuela, officially recognized as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a captivating country nestled on the Caribbean coast of South America. Not only does it share borders with Guyana, Brazil, and Colombia, but its coastline also opens up to the vast Atlantic Ocean.
