Jump to content

Portal:Venezuela

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Venezuela Portal


Flag of Venezuela
Flag of Venezuela

Venezuela, 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.[verification needed] 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, including 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...)

Floating Clouds (sometimes called Flying Saucers by the artist) is a work of art by American sculptor Alexander Calder, located in the Aula Magna of the University City of Caracas in Venezuela. The 1953 work comprises many 'cloud' panels that are renowned both artistically and acoustically. The piece is seen as "one of Calder's most truly monumental works" and the prime example of the urban-artistic theory of campus architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva.

Originally intended as only an art piece, the panels were moved inside the Aula Magna to resolve the poor acoustics caused by the hall's design; the hall has since been said to have some of the best acoustics in the world. The Floating Clouds are named specifically in the UNESCO listing of the campus as a World Heritage Site, and are greatly renowned in Venezuela. (Full article...)

Selected picture

Cerro El Ávila
Cerro El Ávila
The Cerro El Ávila, as seen from the San Bernardino district, in Caracas.

Selected biography - show another

Rodríguez in 2023

Jorge Jesús Rodríguez Gómez (born 9 November 1965) is a Venezuelan politician serving as President of the National Assembly of Venezuela since 2021. He is the brother of Delcy Rodríguez, the vice president and acting president of Venezuela.

He was vice president of Venezuela under the government of Hugo Chávez from 8 January 2007, to 3 January 2008, rector and president of the National Electoral Council from January 2005 to April 2006, and mayor of Caracas from November 2008 to December 2017. He served as Venezuela’s Minister of Communication and Information under President Nicolás Maduro from November 2017 until 4 September 2020, when he left the position to successfully run in that year’s parliamentary elections in the Capital District. (Full article...)

In this month...

Portrait of Antonio José de Sucre

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

Selected list - show another

The Venezuelan troupial is the national bird of Venezuela.

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

30 May 2026 – Crisis in Venezuela
Operation Southern Spear
The United States military carries out a strike on a boat accused of drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three people. (The Guardian) (NPR)
24 May 2026 – Crisis in Venezuela
Hundreds of inmates seize control of a prison in Barinas, Venezuela, and protest alleged torture and abuse, demanding the removal of the prison director as security forces surround the facility. (AFP via The Sun)
14 May 2026 – Guyana–Venezuela relations
Guyana–Venezuela territorial dispute
Guyana demands that Venezuela investigate a series of shootings targeting its troops patrolling the Cuyuní River on the border between both countries, amid ongoing tensions as the sovereignty dispute over the Essequibo region continues at the International Court of Justice. (AP)
6 May 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis
USS Gerald R. Ford officially exits the Mediterranean Sea and enters the Atlantic Ocean after its longest deployment since the Cold War during which it participated in both the Iran war and the Maduro raid. (USNI) (Stars and Stripes)

More did you know...

Venezuelan patrol boat Naiguatá

Topics

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

Recognized content

Good articles

New articles

This list was generated from these rules. Questions and feedback are always welcome! The search is being run daily with the most recent ~14 days of results. Note: Some articles may not be relevant to this project.

Rules | Match log | Results page (for watching) | Deleted articles| Last updated: 2026-05-31 20:37 (UTC)

Note: The list display can now be customized by each user. See List display personalization for details.












{{{1}}}

Things you can do


Here are some Venezuela tasks:

WikiProjects

WikiProjects puzzle
WikiProjects puzzle
The Project page was designed with the aim of improving the quality of articles related to Venezuela, in Wikipedia and other media. Feel free to join in!
Considered as a "parent" project, together with the countries project.
Task force focusing on cinema related to Venezuela.

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals

Purge server cache