Venezuela

A republic formed out of the provinces which, under Spanish rule, constituted the captaincy general of the same name. This republic has an area of 280,918 square miles, lying between the meridians of 62? and 73? W. longitude, and between 1? 8' and 12? 16' N. latitude. Its surface is distributed as follows: mountain ranges, 92,913 square miles; table lands, 1591 square miles; plains, 228,993 square miles; lakes, 7509 square miles; lands liable to inundation, 24,544 square miles; the remainder being swamps, uninhabitable paramos, and small islands. It is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which it has a coastline of 898 miles; south, by the Republic of Brazil, from which it is separated by the great Parima range; east, by the Atlantic Ocean and British Guiana; west, by the Republic of Colombia. Without including the rivers that rise in Colombia, there are 1047 rivers in Venezuela, the principal being the Orinoco, which rises in the forest regions and by means of the Casiquiare branch unites with the Rio Negro, which, again, flows into the Amazon; it then flows north and afterwards east, and discharges by means of eighty mouths into the Atlantic ocean, after a course of 1323 miles. The other rivers are the Apure, Meta, Cuyuni, Quariare, Cuara, Puruni. There are also two lakes, the Maracaibo and the Valencia; 204 lagoons, among which are the Tacarigua, the Sinamaica and the Guasaconica; three principal gulfs, the Maracaibo, the Triste, and the Paria. The highest mountain peaks are the Sierra Nevada, 16,437 ft.; Naiguata, 10,500 ft.; Maraguata, 9000 ft. There are no volcanoes, but some thermal springs, the most famous being those of Trincheras in Carabobo, Cuiva in Coro, and Guarume in the Guarico. +