The economy of Venezuela is largely based on the petroleum sector and manufacturing. In 2014, total trade amounted to 48.1% of the country's GDP. Exports accounted for 16.7% of GDP and petroleum products accounted for about 95% of those exports. Venezuela is the sixth largest member of OPEC by oil production. Since the 1920s, Venezuela has been a rentier state, offering oil as its main export. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, the Venezuelan economy experienced a steady growth that attracted many immigrants, with the nation enjoying the highest standard of living in Latin America. During the collapse of oil prices in the 1980s, the economy contracted the monetary sign, commenced a progressive devaluation and inflation skyrocketed to reach peaks of 84% in 1989 and 99% in 1996, three years prior to Hugo Chávez taking office. The nation, however, has experienced hyperinflation since 2015 far exceeding the oil price collapse of the 1990s.
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was a Venezuelan politician who was President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012.
Caracas, officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and centre of the Greater Caracas Area. Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range. Terrain suitable for building lies between 760 and 1,140 m above sea level, although there is some settlement above this range. The valley is close to the Caribbean Sea, separated from the coast by a steep 2,200-metre-high (7,200 ft) mountain range, Cerro El Ávila; to the south there are more hills and mountains. The Metropolitan Region of Caracas has an estimated population of 5,297,026.
The Orinoco River is one of the longest rivers in South America at 2,140 kilometres (1,330 mi). Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers 880,000 square kilometres (340,000 sq mi), with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the world by discharge volume of water. The Orinoco River and its tributaries are the major transportation system for eastern and interior Venezuela and the llanos of Colombia. The environment in the Orinoco's basin is extremely diverse; it hosts a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. is the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company. It has activities in exploration, production, refining and exporting oil as well as exploration and production of natural gas. Since its founding on 1 January 1976 with the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA has dominated the oil industry of Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter.
Los Llanos is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the flooded grasslands and savannas biome.
The President of Venezuela, officially known as the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the head of state and head of government in Venezuela's presidential system. The president leads the National Executive of the Venezuelan government and is the commander-in-chief of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces. Presidential terms were set at six years in with the adoption of the 1999 constitution, and re-election has been unlimited since 2009.
The Venezuelan Air Force, officially the Venezuelan National Bolivarian Military Aviation is a professional armed body designed to defend Venezuela's sovereignty and airspace. It is a service component of the National Armed Forces of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Nicolás Maduro Moros is a Venezuelan politician who, since 2013, eventually consolidating enough power to become the country's de facto dictator. He is currently not recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela by over 50 countries and a number of international organizations including the OAS and the Lima Group. Maduro previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2013 and as Vice President of Venezuela from 2012 to 2013 under President Hugo Chávez.
Relations between Cuba and Venezuela since 1902 were aggravated by the Cold War, with Venezuela tending to side with the United States, while Cuba was a loyal ally of the Soviet Union. A destabilizing factor was the alleged Cuban support for the antigovernment guerrilla force that operates in remote rural areas. In 1999 the bilateral relation significantly improved during the Presidency of Hugo Chávez. Chávez formed a major alliance with Cuban president Fidel Castro and significant trade relationship with Cuba since his election in 1999. The warm relationship between the two countries continued to intensify. After decades of close ties in the Caribbean, several governments in the region started to distance from the United States. Hugo Chávez described Castro as his mentor and called Cuba "a revolutionary democracy".
The plushcap is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae. It is the only member of its genus Catamblyrhynchus.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Venezuela:
Japanese Venezuelans are Venezuelan citizens who have full or partial Japanese ancestry. The first wave of Japanese came to Venezuela on 1931.
The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling 297 billion barrels (4.72×1010 m3) as of 1 January 2014. In early 2011, then-president Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelan government announced that the nation's oil reserves had surpassed that of the previous long-term world leader, Saudi Arabia. OPEC said that Saudi Arabia's reserves stood at 265 billion barrels (4.21×1010 m3) in 2009.
Barlovento is a sub-region of Miranda state, Venezuela. During Spanish colonization of the Americas, Barlovento was developed as estate owners founded cacao haciendas. The work on the estates was done by African slaves brought from what is now the Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. These people were from the Kingdom of Kongo and Kingdom of Loango. There were also Yoruba slaves.
A socioeconomic and political crisis that began in Venezuela during the presidency of Hugo Chávez continued into the presidency of Nicolás Maduro. The situation is the worst economic crisis in Venezuela's history, and among the worst crises experienced in the Americas, with hyperinflation, soaring hunger, disease, crime and death rates, and massive emigration from the country. Observers and economists have stated that the crisis is not the result of a conflict or natural disaster but the consequences of populist socialist policies that began under the Chávez administration's Bolivarian Revolution, with the Brookings Institution stating that "Venezuela has really become the poster child for how the combination of corruption, economic mismanagement, and undemocratic governance can lead to widespread suffering."
Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez is a Venezuelan politician who has been serving as President of the National Assembly of Venezuela and as the partially recognized interim President of Venezuela since January 2019. He is a member of the centrist social-democratic Popular Will party, and serves as a federal deputy to the National Assembly, representing the state of Vargas.
A crisis concerning who is the legitimate President of Venezuela has been underway since 10 January 2019, when the opposition-majority National Assembly declared that incumbent Nicolás Maduro's 2018 reelection was invalid and the body declared its president, Juan Guaidó, to be acting president of the nation.
