Maracaibo

Maracaibo is the capital of Zulia state in northwestern Venezuela, on the west shore of the strait linking Lake Maracaibo with the sea. A local legend ties the name to Mara, a young chief of the lakeside peoples in the time of the Spanish conquest.

The General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge, named after the independence general born in the city, has crossed the strait since the 1960s on a concrete span of 8.7 km (5.4 mi). In the Basilica of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá hangs a small painting of the Virgin, known as La Chinita, said to have been found by a washerwoman on the lakeshore in the 18th century. Her feast in November opens the Feria de la Chinita, with processions and gaita, the Christmas folk music of Zulia played on the cuatro, the furro drum and maracas. Calle Carabobo, near the old center, keeps a row of colonial houses painted in strong colors. Luis Aparicio, the shortstop elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, was born in Maracaibo.

Ambrosius Ehinger, a German agent of the Welser banking house, founded the first settlement on the site in 1529, but it was soon abandoned. Pedro Maldonado founded the lasting town in 1574 as Nueva Zamora de la Laguna de Maracaibo. During the 19th century its port shipped coffee from the Venezuelan Andes and from Colombia, and German trading houses opened offices along the waterfront. Oil found around the lake in the 1910s made Maracaibo the center of the Venezuelan oil industry, and the University of Zulia, reopened in the 1940s, grew with it.

Crude oil from fields in and around Lake Maracaibo leaves through the strait, which was dredged in the 1950s so that tankers could reach the lake. Cervecería Regional, founded in the city, brews Regional and Regional Light beer for the whole country. The Port of Maracaibo handles general cargo and food imports for western Venezuela.