How long is venezuela

One striking example is the loss of real wages following the recent devaluations. Every day the majority of Venezuelans live with the insecurity that comes from this type of dual calculation.

In mid-May, I visited Las Lomas, a hamlet some 60 miles 97 km from Caracas that is reached by crossing a dirt highway, with Henrique Capriles Radonski, governor of the state of Miranda and former opposition candidate.

Although Valles del Tuy, the region where Las Lomas is located, is one of the bastions of chavismo , the people there endure an exacerbated version of the problems afflicting the country: they lack running water; suffer permanent electricity outages; do not have a paved highway or public transportation; and are beaten up by criminals—and by the police. Capriles was the first regional government leader to visit Las Lomas since it was founded seven decades ago.

He was welcomed enthusiastically, but the excitement of the presidential campaigns of and was missing. In other words, Capriles went to Las Lomas essentially as governor, but also as opposition leader. Can his ascendance help to reunify an opposition that today is fractured in apparently irreconcilable factions? While the social and economic deterioration has hurt the government, the opposition has often failed to capitalize on popular discontent—the result in part of not listening to popular sentiment before making a grandiose speech.

That was what Capriles tried to do in Las Lomas. Rivas told me that the women of Las Lomas had united without political flags to combat common problems. When the gangs kill one of our kids, we all suffer from it. Capriles praised the villagers for their teamwork and asked them to use education to protect themselves from poverty.

He promised to build a multi-purpose sports court and improve the elementary school, and gave titles of land ownership to several farmers. He then presented a plan to help the people of Las Lomas build their own houses with materials and technical expertise provided by his government.

Capriles knows that the disenchantment of chavistas like Rivas provides an opening for the opposition—and perhaps for his own leadership ambitions. I do not feel part of any elite, nor do I want to be.

I am not in politics to protect economic groups or individual interests, nor to defend the rich. The rich must produce, pay taxes and generate progress for the country. There are many steps before arriving there. The first is for the dialogue being carried out today by the government and the opposition to produce tangible results in the restoration of state institutions. However, the crucial element will be organizing to attract those Venezuelans who are unhappy with the Maduro government.

Those would be basic indicators of success. Most of the opposition parties boycotted legislative elections held in December and as a result, a coalition led by Mr Maduro's PSUV party won a majority of the seats in the National Assembly. He and his fellow opposition lawmakers argue that until free elections are held, their assembly is the only legitimate institution in Venezuela.

Venezuela opposition figure Guevara arrested. UN to feed crisis-hit Venezuelan schoolchildren. US grants Venezuelans temporary protected status. Maduro allies take control of Venezuela parliament. Polls hand Maduro total control in Venezuela. Venezuela opposition figure secretly flees country. Image source, AFP. Castro defaulted on Venezuela's considerable foreign debts, and declined to pay compensation to foreigners caught up in Venezuela's civil wars.

This led to the Venezuela Crisis of —, in which Britain, Germany and Italy imposed a naval blockade of several months, before international arbitration at the new Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague was agreed. The discovery of massive oil deposits in Lake Maracaibo during World War I would prove pivotal for Venezuela, and soon transformed the basis of its economy, from a heavy dependence on agricultural exports.

It prompted an economic boom that would last into the s; by , Venezuela's per capita gross domestic product was Latin America's highest. He remained the most powerful man in Venezuela until his death in , although at times he ceded the Presidency to others. In an effort to consolidate the young democracy, the major political parties with the notable exception of the Communist Party of Venezuela signed the Punto Fijo Pact.

The s saw substantial guerilla movements, including the Armed Forces of National Liberation and the Revolutionary Left Movement, which had split from Democratic Action in Most of these movements lay down their arms under Rafael Caldera's presidency —74 ; Caldera had won the election for COPEI, being the first time a party other than Democratic Action took the presidency through a democratic election.

This led to massive increases in public spending, but also increases in external debts, which continued into the s when the collapse of oil prices during the s crippled the Venezuelan economy. As the government started to devalue the currency in February in order to face its financial obligations, Venezuelans' real standard of living fell dramatically.

A number of failed economic policies and increasing corruption in government led to rising poverty and crime, worsening social indicators, and increased political instability.

Corruption remains a problem; Venezuela was ranked near the bottom of countries in the Corruptions Perceptions Index in He was elected for another term in December Venezuela is located in the north of South America; geologically its mainland rests on the South American Plate. It has a total area of , square kilometres , sq mi and a land area of , square kilometres , sq mi , making it the 33rd largest country.

Shaped roughly like an inverted triangle, the country has a 2, km 1, mi coastline in the north, which includes numerous islands in the Caribbean Sea, and in the northeast borders the northern Atlantic Ocean. Most observers describe Venezuela in terms of four fairly well-defined topographical regions: the Maracaibo lowlands in the northwest, the northern mountains extending in a broad east-west arc from the Colombian border along the northern Caribbean coast, the wide plains in central Venezuela, and the Guiana highlands in the southeast.

The northern mountains are the extreme northeastern extensions of South America's Andes mountain range reach. To the south, the dissected Guiana Highlands contains the northern fringes of the Amazon Basin and Angel Falls, the world's highest waterfall as well as tepuis, large table-like mountains. The country's center is characterized by the llanos , which are extensive plains that stretch from the Colombian border in the far west to the Orinoco River delta in the east.

The Orinoco, with its rich alluvial soils, binds the largest and most important river system of the country; it originates in one of the largest watersheds in Latin America.

Venezuela borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south. Venezuela has territorial disputes with Guyana formerly United Kingdom , largely concerning the Essequibo area, and with Colombia concerning the Gulf of Venezuela. In , after years of diplomatic attempts to solve the border dispute, from Venezuela, the dispute over the Essequibo River border flared up, it was submitted to a "neutral" commission composed of British, American and Russian representatives and without a direct Venezuelan representative , which in decided mostly against Venezuela's claim.

Venezuela's most significant natural resources are petroleum and natural gas, iron ore, gold and other minerals. It also has large areas of arable land and water. Annual rainfall varies between mm The precipitation level is lower in the period from November to April and later in the year from August to October.

These periods are referred to as Hot-Humid and Cold-Dry seasons. Other charasteristic of the climate is this variation throughout the country by the existence of a mountain range called "Cordillera de la Costa" which crosses the country from east to west. The majority of the population lives in these mountains. The country falls into four horizontal temperature zones based primarily on elevation, having Tropical, Dry, Temperate with Dry Winters, and Polar Alpine tundra climates, amongst others.

Venezuela lies within the Neotropic ecozone; large portions of the country were originally covered by moist broadleaf forests. One of seventeen megadiverse countries, Venezuela's habitats range from the Andes mountains in the west to the Amazon Basin rainforest in the south, via extensive llanos plains and Caribbean coast in the center and the Orinoco River Delta in the east.

They include xeric scrublands in the extreme northwest and coastal mangrove forests in the northeast. Its cloud forests and lowland rainforests are particularly rich.

Animals of Venezuela are diverse and include manatees, Amazon river dolphins, and Orinoco crocodiles, which have been reported to reach up to 6. Venezuela hosts a total of 1, bird species, 48 of which are endemic. Important birds include ibises, ospreys, kingfishers, and the yellow-orange Venezuelan Troupial, the national bird.

Notable mammals include the Giant Anteater, jaguar, and the capybara, the world's largest rodent. More than half of Venezuelan avian and mammalian species are found in the Amazonian forests south of the Orinoco. For the fungi, an account was provided by R. Dennis which has been digitized and the records made available on-line as part of the Cybertruffle Robigalia database. That database includes nearly 3, species of fungi recorded from Venezuela, but is far from complete, and it is likely that the true total number of fungal species already known from Venezuela is higher.

Among plants of Venezuela, over 25, species of orchids are found in the country's cloud forest and lowland rainforest ecosystems. These include the flor de mayo orchid Cattleya mossiae , the national flower. Venezuela is among the top twenty countries in terms of endemism.

Although the amount of available information is still very small, a first effort has been made to estimate the number of fungal species endemic to Venezuela: species of fungi have been tentatively identified as possible endemics of the country. In recent decades, logging, mining, shifting cultivation, development, and other human activities have posed a major threat to Venezuela's wildlife; between and , 0. The country has a biosphere reserve that is part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves; five wetlands are registered under the Ramsar Convention.

Venezuela is divided into 23 states estados , a capital district distrito capital corresponding to the city of Caracas, and the Federal Dependencies Dependencias Federales , a special territory. Venezuela is further subdivided into municipalities municipios ; these are subdivided into over one thousand parishes parroquias. The country can be further divided into ten geographical areas, some corresponding to climatic and biogeographical regions.

In the north are the Venezuelan Andes and the Coro region, a mountainous tract in the northwest, holds several sierras and valleys. East of it are lowlands abutting Lake Maracaibo and the Gulf of Venezuela. The Central Range runs parallel to the coast and includes the hills surrounding Caracas; the Eastern Range, separated from the Central Range by the Gulf of Cariaco, covers all of Sucre and northern Monagas. It suffers high levels of corruption.

Venezuela has the least expensive petrol in the world because the consumer price of petrol is so heavily subsidized. Most of Venezuela's gold held abroad is located in London. Venezuela manufactures and exports heavy industry products such as steel, aluminium and cement, with production concentrated around Ciudad Guayana, near the Guri Dam, one of the largest in the world and the provider of about three-quarters of Venezuela's electricity.

Other notable manufacturing includes electronics and automobiles, as well as beverages, and foodstuffs. Venezuela exports rice, corn, fish, tropical fruit, coffee, beef, and pork. The country is not self-sufficient in most areas of agriculture; Venezuela imports about two-thirds of its food needs. Since the discovery of oil in the early 20th century, Venezuela has been one of the world's leading exporters of oil, and it is a founding member of OPEC.

The s also saw Venezuela experience a major banking crisis in In , Venezuela was listed as having the highest inflation rate in the world, averaging Venezuela has some of the largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world, and consistently ranks among the top ten world crude oil producers. Compared to the preceding year another The country's main petroleum deposits are located around and beneath Lake Maracaibo, the Gulf of Venezuela both in Zulia , and in the Orinoco River basin eastern Venezuela , where the country's largest reserve is located.

Besides the largest conventional oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela has non-conventional oil deposits extra-heavy crude oil, bitumen and tar sands approximately equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil.

The electricity sector in Venezuela is one of the few to rely primarily on hydropower, and includes the Guri Dam, one of the largest in the world. In the first half of the 20th century, US oil companies were heavily involved in Venezuela, initially interested only in purchasing concessions. In the s PDVSA became more independent from the government and presided over an apertura opening in which it invited in foreign investment.

Managers and skilled highly paid technicians of PDVSA shut down the plants and left their posts, and by some reports sabotaged equipment, and petroleum production and refining by PDVSA almost ceased. Activities eventually were slowly restarted by returning and substitute oil workers. In the south and east the Amazon rainforest region has limited cross-border transport; in the west, there is a mountainous border of over 2, kilometres 1, mi shared with Colombia.

The Orinoco River is navigable by oceangoing vessels up to kilometres mi inland, and connects the major industrial city of Ciudad Guayana to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Maracaibo Metro and Valencia Metro were opened more recently. Venezuela has a road network of nearly , kilometres 62, mi in length, placing the country around 45th in the world; around a third of roads are paved.

With social programs such as the Bolivarian Missions, Venezuela made progress in social development in s, particularly in areas such as health, education, and poverty. It is expected that Venezuela will meet all eight goals by the deadline.

The people of Venezuela come from a variety of heritages. It is estimated that the majority of the population is of mestizo, or mixed, ethnic heritage. Venezuela's racial structure can be classified as Indigenous people account for only 2.