Distribución Espacial De La Población Venezolana ((hot)) -

Travel south of the Orinoco River, and you enter a demographic ghost zone. The , Bolívar , and Delta Amacuro states cover nearly half the country but contain less than 5% of the population. This is the Guayana Shield—a land of tepuis (flat-topped mountains), roaring rivers, and dense rainforest. Here, the only settlements are indigenous villages, remote military outposts, and the dystopian, planned city of Ciudad Guayana (a mid-century modern experiment to industrialize the jungle, which remains an anomaly).

Then came the black tide. Oil wasn't found in the mountains; it erupted from the in the far northwest and the Orinoco Oil Belt in the south. For the first time, populations exploded in the lowlands—but only in specific, industrial "oil islands." Maracaibo became a sweltering, chaotic boomtown, while Ciudad Ojeda and Cabimas grew like fungal colonies around the derricks. distribución espacial de la población venezolana

But the real demographic monster was . The capital concentrated the oil wealth, the ministries, the banks, and the grand projects. Between 1936 and 1990, Caracas multiplied its population by 20. Rural peasants from the Andes and the Llanos (plains) flooded in, creating the barrios —the steep, precarious shantytowns that now cling to the mountain flanks like geological accidents. Today, the Greater Caracas area holds nearly 20% of the nation's population in less than 0.5% of its territory. Travel south of the Orinoco River, and you