Venezuela: Regions, Cities & Travel Guide

What is Venezuela known for?

The water drops almost a kilometre off the cliff of Auyán-tepui in Canaima, the tallest uninterrupted fall on Earth. Caracas, the capital, sits in a valley below the wall of El Ávila, while Maracaibo runs the oil economy on the lake of the same name. The Andes peak at Pico Bolívar above the mountain town of Mérida, the Orinoco threads the central plains, and the tepuis of the Guiana Highlands stand over the country's wild southern half.

Where is Venezuela?

Venezuela occupies the northern shoulder of South America, fronting the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic and sharing land borders with Colombia to the west, Brazil to the south, and Guyana to the east. Geographers split the country into four blocks of terrain. In the north-west lies the Maracaibo lowlands, a hot flat basin ringed by mountains on three sides and centred on Lake Maracaibo, whose southern shore drains a web of rivers and whose bed holds the oil that built the western economy.

From there the Andes enter the country as the Cordillera de Mérida, a chain that runs north-east from the Colombian border and rises to Pico Bolívar, the highest ground in Venezuela at nearly five kilometres. Below the mountains spread the Llanos. These are the wide Orinoco plains of the centre, grassland so level that the land barely lifts above the rivers that cross it in the wet months.

The Orinoco itself orders this space, gathering the runoff of half the country before it fans into a delta on the Atlantic side. South and east of the great river stretch the Guiana Highlands, an ancient upland of crystalline rock that covers well over a third of the national territory. Out of that plateau rise the tepuis, sheer table mountains like Auyán-tepui and Mount Roraima, and off the northern coast lie the Caribbean islands, Margarita Island the largest among them.

Few countries pack so many worlds into one map.

What is the history of Venezuela?

Independence was born in Caracas. On 5 July 1811 seven provinces of the Captaincy General declared their break from Spain, and the man who came to carry that cause was Simón Bolívar, a Caracas-born landowner whose campaigns would liberate half a continent. The first attempt collapsed fast.

A ruinous earthquake struck Caracas in 1812 and helped topple the young First Republic, and a second republic fell soon after to royalist arms and local revolt. Bolívar regrouped from the plains and the Caribbean, and only with the liberation of New Granada in 1819 did the fight finally hold. For a decade Venezuela formed part of Gran Colombia, the union Bolívar built with what are now Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador.

The arrangement did not last. In 1830, the year Bolívar died, Venezuela pulled away and became a sovereign republic in its own right. The century that followed brought caudillos, civil wars, and coffee, and then the twentieth century brought oil from beneath Lake Maracaibo, which reordered the whole economy and pulled Venezuelans into the coastal cities.

The country carries Bolívar's name in its very title, the Bolivarian Republic. His statue stands in the central plaza of nearly every town. History here still speaks with his voice.

What is Venezuela like?

Venezuelan culture is a braid of three inheritances. The national dish, pabellón criollo, sets shredded beef beside black beans and rice with fried plantain, a plate the government named intangible heritage; it reads as a small map of the nation, Indigenous corn, Spanish cattle, African plantain and frying. Corn runs through everything.

The arepa, a griddled maize cake split and stuffed, is eaten from Maracaibo to the delta at any hour of the day. Music carries the same regional stamp. Above all there is the joropo, the harp-and-cuatro dance that came out of the Llanos and became a sound the whole country claims as its own.

Venezuela also built El Sistema, the state music programme that put instruments into the hands of hundreds of thousands of children and sent its graduates to podiums abroad. Then there is baseball, brought in through the oil camps of the west and now the national game. Faith, family, and a loud warmth in daily dealings tie it together.

Regional pride runs deep, the Andes, the plains, and the coast each sure of their own way. One country speaks in many accents at once.

What is the climate of Venezuela?

Venezuela is tropical, and altitude does the sorting. The Maracaibo lowlands and the Llanos stay hot the year round, splitting into a dry season the locals call verano and a rainy invierno rather than four temperate seasons. Height changes the rules.

Up in the Cordillera de Mérida the air turns cool and thin, and the highest ground near Pico Bolívar holds the only permanent cold in the country. Rain peaks from June to October inland. The clearest skies, and the passable roads to Canaima, come in the drier months around the turn of the year.

How do you get to Venezuela?

Most travellers arrive through Caracas. The main international airport sits at Maiquetía on the coast below the capital, on the far side of El Ávila from the city itself. Maracaibo and Valencia take some regional flights, and Margarita Island has its own airport for the beach traffic.

The country is large, and the interior is far from the coast. Reaching Angel Falls means a further flight into Canaima, since no road runs to the base of the falls.