Vespucci’s “Little Venice” named stilt houses on Maracaibo
Venezuela, the Bolivarian Republic on South America’s Caribbean coast, covers about 912,050 square kilometres with roughly 31.8 million people. In 1499 Alonso de Ojeda’s expedition saw Lake Maracaibo stilt houses that reminded Amerigo Vespucci of Venice, yielding Veneziola—“Little Venice.”
Another explanation comes from Martín Fernández de Enciso, who sailed with Vespucci and Ojeda. In his Summa de geografía he wrote that the crew met Indigenous people calling themselves the Veneciuela, so the country’s name may grow from a local word rather than an Italian comparison. Official titles have changed repeatedly since: State of Venezuela from 1830, Republic from 1856, United States of Venezuela from 1864 to 1953, then Republic again until 1999.
People have lived here for about 15,000 years. Tools turn up on high river terraces of the Río Pedregal in the west, and spear points from a series of north-western sites have been radiocarbon dated to between 13,000 and 7,000 BC. Before the Spanish arrived, the region held an estimated one million people, among them the Kalina or Caribs, the Auaké, Caquetio, Mariche and Timoto–Cuicas.
The Timoto–Cuicas built the most complex society, with planned permanent villages ringed by irrigated terraces growing potatoes and ullucos. They lived peacefully in stone-and-timber houses under thatch, wove plant fibre into cloth and mats, and made human-shaped pottery, though they raised no great monuments. They are credited with inventing the arepa, still a national staple.
Spain began colonising in 1522 in the face of Indigenous resistance. In 1811 Venezuela was among the first Spanish American territories to declare independence, and it formed part of Gran Colombia before becoming a separate country. Oil money later paid for populist social programmes and cut poverty and inequality for a time under Chávez, but poverty rose again quickly from mid-2014.
Source: Venezuela
