Venezuela



Venezuela is a country in northern South America. Its official name is República Bolivariana de Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela). The official language is Spanish, and its capital is Caracas. Venezuela produces a large amount of oil every year, and has one of the largest oil supplies in the world.

Ancient Venezuelans came from the east, west, south, and north. Christopher Columbus was the first European to set foot on the land, but there were already natives living there for a long time. The Spaniards first conquered Venezuela. Slaves were imported from Africa.

Venezuela's inhabitants are very racially mixed. This comes from the colonial period. When whites (the British, Spaniards, French, etc.) conquered America's territory, they took their black African slaves to America to work. During Venezuela's colonial time, black people did not have any rights. They just worked for food. The native people were taught Roman Catholicism. For a long time, white creoles, people in Venezuela that were descended from Spaniards but considered Venezuela home, headed society. The Venezuelan people did not like that, and started thinking about independence. On July 24, 1823, Venezuela won its independence, led by Simón Bolívar. The current president is Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuela's economy is based on oil, cotton, cocoa, sugar, coffee, and tobacco.

Some other languages spoken in Venezuela are Carib, Guahibo, Warao, Wayuu, Pemon, and Piaroa. Most people are Roman Catholic at 96%, and a small minority is Protestant at 2%.

Venezuela's modern history was shaped by a number of people, including President Romulo Betancourt, who replaced a military dictatorship with a democracy. By the 1970s, Venezuela had become rich off of oil revenue, but it had problems in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999 Hugo Chávez became president and tried to remake Venezuela as a socialist state. While popular at first, the economic changes Chavez and the next president, Maduro passed caused a massive economic depression in the mid 2010s.

Venezuela is famous for being the home of Angel Falls, the world's tallest waterfall, which is located in the Bolivar state.

Demographics
The population of Venezuela is about 28,946,101 people. The ethnic groups of the population are:
 * 65%: multiracial.
 * 21%: European.
 * 10%: African.
 * 3%: Amerindian.