Venezuela

Venezuela: population and cities

Population

Population

According to Countryaah website, Venezuela has around 29 million people.

Ethnic composition

Mestizo 67%, Europeans 21%, Africans 10%, Indians 2%

Religious

affiliation Catholics 92.7%, other 7.3%

National languages

Spanish (official language) and indigenous languages

Capital and other cities

The cultural heart of the country is the fascinating, lively, but unfortunately not always very joyful capital of Caracas, located around 920 meters above sea level, a cauldron framed by the Ávila mountain range with seething temperament and morbid charm. The city has a population of around 2 million and in the metropolitan area of 6 million. The city attracts with a myriad of magnificent buildings such as the Pantheon or the city theater, but above all with its countless museums such as the Colección Cisneros, the Colección Fundación Polar, the Museo Alejandro Otero, the Museo de Arte Colonial Quinta de Anauco or the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofia Imber.

Other cities are:

• Maracaibo with around 1,208,000 residents
• Valencia with around 903,000 residents
• Barquisimeto with around 603,000 residents
• Ciudad Guayana with around 453,000 residents
• Maracay with around 354,000 residents.

Venezuela: geography

Defined by DigoPaul, Venezuela is located on the north coast of South America, it borders the Caribbean Sea, Guyana, Brazil and Colombia.

Area and national borders

Whoever enters Venezuela is dealing with a country that is about three times the size of Germany and 40% covered by forest areas. The country's coastline is more than 2,800 kilometers long and can be used to reach both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Colombia, Guyana and Brazil are Venezuela's neighbors and, in a broader sense, the Caribbean island states of Aruba, the Dutch Artillas and also Trinidad and Tobago. Venezuela is a land of contrasts in landscape. While the snow-covered giants of the Cordillera de Mérida touch the clouds on one side, the hot desert landscapes with their deadly climate dominate the Isthmus of Coro. And while islands and coral reefs stretch out like carpets off the vast Venezuelan coast as far as the eye can see,

There are four regions in the country: Venezuela is characterized on the one hand by the Andes, which are up to 5,000 meters high (highest mountain: Pico Bolívar at 4,981 m), this gigantic mountain range that arches through the country and is so sublime how beautiful is. Inland, the Llanos del Orinoco dominate, extensive plains that are crossed by the second longest river in South America. In addition to grasslands, these plains also include wide swamp areas, which are the lifeblood of a fantastic animal world. The Maracaibo lowlands in northwest Venezuela bear the name of the gigantic Maracaibo Lake, a colossus of 13,000 km² and a depth of up to 50 meters. Finally there is the highlands of Guiana in the southeast of the country, one of the oldest landscapes in South America. Its most interesting phenomenon is the Gran Sabana with its so-called Tepuis (= table mountains), from which the highest waterfalls on earth plunge down into the depths. The Salto Ángel (Kerekupai-Merú or Angel Falls), the highest free-falling waterfall in the world with a height of 978 meters, also pours here. It is also the most famous tourist magnet in the Canaima National Park.

In summary:

Venezuela covers an area of 916,445 km².

Thereof:

• Forest

  Around 39% of the country is forested.

• Meadows and pastureland

  Around 20% of the land is used as meadows or pastureland.

• Arable land and fields

  Around 4% of the land is used as arable land or fields.

Venezuela is located in the northeast of South America and has a common border with a total of three countries. There are limits to this

• Brazil (with a length of around 2,200 km)
• Colombia (with a length of around 2,050 km)
• Guyana (with a length of around 743 km).

Coastline

The country's coastline is over 2,800 kilometers long and borders both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

Tidal range

In Venezuela, the mean tidal range is only around 0.8 m. For detailed explanations of ebb and flow, see Tides, Ebb and Flow.

Compare

The world's highest tidal range can be found in the Bay of Fundy in Canada, where it is up to 16 meters, and at spring tide even over 20 meters. The Bay of Fundy is located on the Atlantic between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which is called Nova Scotia in German and whose capital is Halifax. On the German North Sea coast it varies between one and three meters. In the western Baltic Sea, on the other hand, the tidal range is only 0.3 meters, while it is barely noticeable in the eastern Baltic Sea.

Longitude and latitude

Venezuela extends over the following geographical latitude (abbreviation Δφ) and geographical longitude (abbreviation Δλ):

You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.

Legal time

For Venezuela, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET), i.e. the time without summer time. A minus sign means that it is earlier there, a plus sign that it is later than CET:

Further and detailed explanations of the time can be found under Time zones, time. The original time difference up to December 9, 2007 was 5 hours. From this date on, the clocks were set back half an hour on the orders of the President.

The highest point of the sun in Caracas

Caracas, the capital of the country, is located at a southern latitude of around φ = 10.5 ° (10 ° 30 ') and thus in the middle of the tropics. If the declination δ of the sun has the value 10 ° 30` S and the image point of the sun is thus exactly above the city, the sun is perpendicular there. This happens exactly twice a year, roughly 41 days after March 21st and then again 41 days before September 21st.

Attention

If the image point of the sun and thus the declination δ is north of the latitude of Caracas, the sun is not in the south at noon, as in our latitudes, but in the north. In this case, the sun moves from east to north to west, where, like us, it sets.

For more information, see Sun Position.

Mountains

Pico Bolivar

The highest mountain in the country is the Pico Bolivar with a height of 4,980 m. The mountain is located in the vicinity of Mérida, the capital of the state of the same name. It is located about 180 km east of the border with Colombia. The mountain was named in honor of the South American independence fighter Simón Bolívar (1783-1830). The time of the first ascent of the mountain is controversial, it took place either in 1935 or on February 3, 1936 by mountaineers from Germany.

Pico Humboldt

The Pico Humboldt has a height of 4,942 m, making it the second highest mountain in the country. It is located about 6 km east of the Pico Bolivar in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida. The base camp "Laguna Verde" serves as the starting point for climbing both mountains.

Pico Concha

The Pico Concha has a height of 4,922 m and is also located in the same region as the Pico Bolivar and the Pico Humboldt - in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida

Pico Espejo

The Pico Espejo has a height of 4,765 m and is located west of the Pico Concha in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida

Pico Bonpland

The Pico Bonpland has a height of 4,883 m and is located in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida

Pico Toro

The Pico Toro has a height of 4,755 m and is located in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida

Pico León

The Pico León has a height of 4740 m and is located in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida

Rivers

Orinoco

The longest river in the country is the Orinoco with 436 inflowing rivers and a length of around 2,140 km, of which around 1,605 km of the river are in Venezuela, the remaining 535 the Orinoco flows through Colombia. The source of the river is in the Sierra Parima region near the Venezuelan-Brazil border. It flows over a delta into the Atlantic, which is located in the middle of a large swamp landscape and has large oil deposits.

Río Paragua

The Río Paragua has a length of around 550 km and flows into the Rio Caroni. Its source is in the federal state of Bolivar in Venezuela.

Rio Caroní

On the approximately 640 km long, fast-flowing Rio Caroní there are numerous hydropower plants that generate most of Latin America's electricity. The Guri reservoir is particularly worth mentioning. The river flows into the Orinoco

Lakes, Lake Maracaibo

The country includes numerous smaller and larger lakes.

Lago de Maracaibo (Maracaibo Lake)

The largest lake is the Lago de Maracaibo with an area of about 16,316 km². The lake is located in the north-west of the country, a little more than 40 km from the sea. Some geographers consider it the largest lake in South America, others see it as an extension of the Gulf of Venezuela. The lake has a special feature, as a large number of lightning strikes on around 200 days of the year. The reason is, on the one hand, that the moist and warm air from the Caribbean meets the cold air from the Andes here. On the other hand, methane gases rise from the lake, which are distributed in the clouds and considerably increase the occurrence of lightning.

Guri Reservoir

The Guri Reservoir is a reservoir of the Rio Caroní in the province of Guiana. The reservoir covers an area of 4,250 km² when fully blocked - with a water volume of approx. 138 km³. The turbines of the hydropower plant generate electricity with an output of 10,300 MW (= megawatts).

Valencia Lake

With a length of 29 km, width of 16 km and an area of 375 km², the Valencia lake is the second largest natural lake in the country. Its greatest depth is 40 m. The lake is about 16 km east of the metropolis of Valencia and west of Maracay, which lies on its shore.

Islands

Isla de Margarita

Interesting is the Isla de Margarita from the Nueva Esparta archipelago, which covers an area of 1,150 km² - named after the bravery of the soldiers there during the War of Independence - with a population of 150,000.

Cubagua

Cubagua with the ruins of Nueva Cadiz, the first Spanish settlement in America to the island of Aves, 485 km away.

Caribbean and Atlantic

The caribbean

Venezuela borders on the Caribbean Sea and in the southeast of the country on the Atlantic Ocean - with a total length of around 2,800 km. The Caribbean is a marginal sea of the Atlantic and lies between the islands of the Caribbean and the American continent. In the west, Mexico and other Central American states border the Caribbean. In the south of Colombia and Venezuela. The border in the east and north form the following islands or archipelagos starting from Venezuela in a semi-circle to the "actual" Atlantic: Trinidad and Tabago, Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba. The shortest distance from Cuba to Key West/USA is around 165 km. The deepest point in the Caribbean is the Cayman Rift between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands with a depth of 7,680 m.