According to abbreviationfinder, Caracas – officially called Santiago de León de Caracas – is the capital city of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as the most important administrative, financial, commercial and cultural center of the nation. It is located in the north-central area of the country, about 15 kilometers from the Caribbean Sea and is located within a mountainous valley at an average altitude of 900 meters above sea level.
It was founded on 25 of July of 1567 by Diego de Losada with the name of Santiago de Leon de Caracas. The waters of the Guaire River and many other slopes that descend from the peaks of El Ávila, made this place an ideal city as a settlement for the colony. Its strategic location, due to its proximity to the sea, made it a quick enclave of power.
The name of Caracas has several possible sources, one of them is attributed to the Indians who populated the valley at the time of the entry of the conquerors, thesis that is not very convincing, since such Indians were not known by that name; The idea of a plant that the Indians called “caraca”, which was abundant in the fertile valley, takes more value. Being a city founded by the Spanish, it is characterized by its squared growth around a main square, growth that follows the natural formations of the valley and that climbs on the slopes of the hills to where the city has grown.
Due to its status as the capital of Venezuela, it is the headquarters of the main institutions and organs of the National Power, such as the Presidency of the Republic, the ministries, the National Assembly, the Supreme Court of Justice, the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Ombudsman’s Office. Also, most of the companies and service, food and manufacturing companies reside in Caracas, including PDVSA, Empresas Polar and CANTV. In Caracas, you can find a modern, clean and functional underground transportation system known as the Caracas Metro.
Demography
According to the National Institute of Statistics, the city has a population of 3,205,463 residents, but due to its rapid population growth and its high demographic density, Caracas has exceeded the administrative limits of its perimeter, encompassing territories that make up the Metropolitan District and even surpassing this, coming to form an urban agglomeration up to the satellite cities or bedrooms adjacent to it, such as the Altos Mirandinos, Litoral Metropolitano de Vargas, Guarenas, Guatire and the Valles del Tuy, this large metropolitan area is colloquially known as the Greater Caracas and it has an estimated population of 4.5 million residents, which represents almost one sixth of the total national population, and makes it one of the one hundred most populated metropolitan areas on the planet, the eighth largest in Latin America. The Metropolitan District of Caracas represents less than 1% of the national territory and is home to a ninth of the total population of the country. In other words, out of every 10 Venezuelans, more than 1 lives in Caracas. In percentage numbers, more than 11% of the nation’s total population lives in the five capital municipalities, out of the 335 municipalities that comprise the country. See population of Venezuela.
In the 20th century, a migratory exodus of the peasantry to the city intensified, which in search of improvements in their quality of life, moved to the capital and other cities, producing the depopulation of the rural areas of the country and the demographic saturation of the urban centers, mainly Caracas. This overpopulation has caused the expansion of marginal areas in the peripheries of the city, however, the lowest unemployment rates in the entire country correspond precisely to the metropolitan area of Caracas.
In 1936 the total population of Venezuela was equal to the estimate of the MA of Caracas for the year 2000, more than 3 million residents. From 1936 to 1990, Caracas multiplied its population 11.6 times, that is, it has had an impressive demographic explosion, although far below any other major city in the country, such as Valencia, which multiplied its population in the same period of time. population almost 25 times. [16]
Ecological marginality in topographically rugged terrain is a major problem for the city. It is expressed in the insufficiency of basic urban services and the difficulties for their provision, excessively high densities, physical segregation from the rest of the city and insecurity in all its aspects, while its fundamental cause is associated with wrong urban planning actions.
The evolution of literacy has been increasing in recent years, and the work of the government has been recognized by international organizations such as UNESCO, placing the literacy rate at a percentage lower than 4%.
Between the 1940s and 1950s, after the Second World War, a growing wave of European immigrants began, mostly Spanish, Portuguese and Italian and to a lesser extent there were communities of Germans, French, English and Eastern Europeans(mainly Jews). During the 1960s, President Rómulo Betancourt followed the same policy of the dictatorships: to promote immigration, and not only from Europe, but also from Latin America and other parts of the world, policies that remained very strong until the end of the 1980s, with a strong immigration of Chinese and Arabs. Towards the beginning of the 1990s, immigration began a process of decline.
