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Venezuela: Hispanic Reading Room Country Guide

This guide provides curated Library of Congress resources for researching Venezuela, including digitized primary source materials in a wide variety of formats, books and periodicals, online databases, and tips for searching.

Introduction

Venezuelan horseman. [between 1900 and 1906]. Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Library of Congress holds thousands of collection materials about and from Venezuela. Curated by librarians in the Hispanic Reading Room, this guide is part of a series of Country Guides that provide quick references for countries and regions from the Luso-Hispanic world. The Hispanic Reading Room is the Library’s portal to the Caribbean, Latin America, Spain and Portugal; the indigenous cultures of those areas; and peoples throughout the world historically influenced by Luso-Hispanic heritage, including Latinos in the U.S. This guide offers links to diverse resources on Venezuela from across the Library including digitized primary sources, selected books and periodicals, online databases, and tips for searching. For specific questions or assistance using the Library’s resources, use the Ask a Librarian service to contact a reference librarian.

Venezuela: Quick Facts

Venezuela. United States. Central Intelligence Agency. 2007. Library of Congress Geography and Maps Division.

Official Name: República Bolivariana de Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela)

Capital: Caracas

Date of Independence: July 5, 1811

Head of State/Government: President Nicolas Maduro Moros

Population: 28.64 million

Languages: Spanish and other indigenous dialects

States: 23 states, 1 capital district (distrito capital), and 1 federal dependency (dependencia federal); Amazonas, Anzoategui, Apure, Aragua, Barinas, Bolivar, Carabobo, Cojedes, Delta Amacuro, Dependencias Federales (Federal Dependencies), Distrito Capital (Capital District), Falcon, Guarico, La Guaira, Lara, Merida, Miranda, Monagas, Nueva Esparta, Portuguesa, Sucre, Tachira, Trujillo, Yaracuy, Zulia. The federal dependency consists of 11 federally controlled island groups with a total of 72 individual islands.