n.
City (pop., 2000 est.: 1,764,038), northwestern Venezuela.
Located on the channel connecting Lake Maracaibo with the Gulf of Venezuela, it is Venezuela's second largest city. Founded in 1571 as Nueva Zamora, it became a centre for inland trade after Gibraltar, at the head of the lake, was destroyed in 1669. It changed hands several times during Venezuela's struggle for independence from Spain. Within a decade of the discovery of oil in 1917, it became the oil metropolis of Venezuela and South America.