Venezuela

The coast and interior were home to Carib, Arawak, and other peoples when Columbus reached the mainland here in 1498; the name "Venezuela" — "little Venice" — is usually traced to stilt villages seen on Lake Maracaibo. Spain ruled the region from Caracas, and it became the launchpad of South American independence: Simón Bolívar, born in Caracas, led the wars that freed Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Bolivia, briefly uniting several as Gran Colombia before it broke apart in 1830.

The nineteenth century was dominated by caudillos (strongmen). Oil, found in commercial quantities around Lake Maracaibo in the 1910s, made Venezuela one of the world's top exporters and, for decades, the richest country in Latin America, though the wealth was unevenly shared. A stable two-party democracy from 1958 frayed amid corruption and the 1980s debt crisis, and the 1989 Caracazo riots, put down with hundreds of deaths, marked a turning point.

Hugo Chávez, a former coup leader, won the presidency in 1998 and launched the "Bolivarian Revolution" — a self-described socialism funded by high oil prices, with wide social programmes, growing state control, and sharp polarisation. After his death in 2013, Nicolás Maduro took over as oil prices fell, and the economy collapsed: hyperinflation, a contraction of around three-quarters of GDP, shortages of food and medicine, and the flight of nearly eight million people, one of the largest displacement crises in the world. The 2024 presidential election was claimed by Maduro but widely regarded, including on the basis of published tally sheets, as won by the opposition; a crackdown followed. Venezuela has also revived its long-standing claim to the Essequibo region of neighbouring Guyana, raising regional tensions.

Venezuelan culture is Caribbean and llanero (plains) as much as Andean, warm, loud, and music-filled. Joropo, the harp-and-cuatro music of the plains, and gaita at Christmas are the folk sounds, and the country has produced global figures in music (the youth-orchestra movement El Sistema, the conductor Gustavo Dudamel) and, above all, in beauty pageants and baseball, which is the national sport far more than football.

Family is central, Catholicism is the majority faith (blended with popular devotions such as the cult of María Lionza), and hospitality is generous even amid scarcity. The diaspora has spread Venezuelan food, music, and the arepa across the Americas and Europe, and the crisis has made emigration and the support of relatives abroad part of almost every family's story.

Regional identities are strong — the Andean states, the plains, the oil-and-lake world of Zulia (whose people, maracuchos, have their own accent and pride), and the Caribbean coast — as is a shared, contested reverence for Bolívar, whose image and words are invoked across the political divide.

Around 28 million people remain in Venezuela, down from a peak as emigration continues. Most live in the northern coastal and Andean band, with Caracas — a valley city hemmed by mountains and ringed by hillside barrios — the largest by far, followed by Maracaibo, Valencia, and Barquisimeto.

Daily life is organised around scarcity and improvisation: queues and shortages, rolling blackouts and water rationing (worst in Zulia), a minimum wage worth only a few dollars a month, and reliance on dollar remittances, informal work, and government food boxes. The oil industry, the state's lifeblood, has seen production fall sharply through underinvestment, mismanagement, and sanctions, though it has partly recovered.

For those who stay, resilience, black humour, family networks, and the hope of political change coexist with the daily grind of getting by.

The staple is the arepa, a split disc of griddled maize dough stuffed with cheese, shredded beef, black beans, avocado, or ham — eaten at any meal and a symbol of the country abroad. The national dish is pabellón criollo: shredded beef, black beans, white rice, and fried plantain on one plate.

Hallacas — a cornmeal parcel of stewed meat, olives, raisins, and capers wrapped in plantain leaf — are the labour-intensive centrepiece of Christmas. Cachapa (a sweet fresh-corn pancake with cheese), tequeños (fried cheese sticks), empanadas, and cachitos (ham croissants) are everyday favourites, and the pan de jamón is another festive bread.

Strong black coffee (a guayoyo or a marrón) is drunk throughout the day. Venezuela produces some of the world's finest cacao and, historically, excellent rum; chicha, papelón con limón (raw-sugar lemonade), and malta are the common non-alcoholic drinks.

Venezuela's landscapes are spectacular but, at present, mostly reached only on organised trips. Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the southeast, is a plateau of tepuis — sheer-sided table mountains — from one of which, the Auyán-tepui, Angel Falls drops nearly a kilometre, the highest waterfall on Earth. Mount Roraima, on the triple border with Guyana and Brazil, is the most famous tepui to climb.

The Caribbean coast has the coral archipelago of Los Roques, a national park of white sand and turquoise lagoons, along with Morrocoy and the Península de Paria. The Andes around Mérida rise to Pico Bolívar and are served by the world's highest and longest cable-car system, and the llanos — the vast seasonal wetlands of the interior — are among the best places in South America to see capybara, caiman, anacondas, and abundant birds.

Other natural marvels include the near-permanent lightning storms over the mouth of the Catatumbo River on Lake Maracaibo, the coastal desert and shifting dunes of the Médanos de Coro, and the Orinoco Delta with its Warao stilt communities. The colonial towns of Coro (also UNESCO-listed) and Ciudad Bolívar hold the human history.