Venezuela is located in northern South America, bordering the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Colombia to the west, Brazil to the south, and Guyana to the east, with an area of 352,143 square miles and an estimated population of 29.3 million in August 2011. Venezuela is comprised of 23 states, one Capital District, and the Federal Dependency of 72 islands. The official language of Venezuela is Spanish, as it was once a colony of Spain.

History and Social Structure

Prior to Christopher Columbus's first voyage to this land in 1492, the indigenous people lived mainly on agriculture and hunting. Spain began to colonize Venezuela in 1522. Dedicated to extracting gold and silver from other regions of the Americas, the Spanish relatively ignored this ...

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