Monagas State (, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela.
Monagas State covers a total surface area of and, as of the 2011 census, had a population of 905,443.
Monagas State is surrounded by Sucre State in the north, Anzoátegui State in the west and south, Bolívar State in the south, Delta Amacuro State in the south and east and the Paria Gulf in the northeast.
The state is named after the general and president of Venezuela José Tadeo Monagas, native from this state, and his brother and fellow president José Gregorio Monagas, native from the neighbor Anzoátegui State.
The capital of the state is Maturín.
History
Pre-colonial period Monagas dates back to the settlement of the territory by indigenous people of different ethnic groups hundreds of years ago, among which are the Warao and Kalina people, who mainly settled in the Orinoco Delta, and the people in the north of the state. The first aboriginal people to found a presence in the northern part of the region were the Chaima people belonging to the Capaya tribe.
Although settlement of the territory was slow, archaeological excavations and observations by the chroniclers of the Indies point to the existence of a well-developed village in Barrancas in 1530, when the conquistador Diego de Ordaz passed through the area in search of El Dorado. Also in the 16th century, missionaries arrived in the highlands and slowly the Christianisation and re-education of the Indians spread to the south; they thus adapted to a more sedentary life.
In the site where Barrancas is located today, archaeological objects and utensils have been found that belonged to the so-called Barrancoid and Saladoid cultures, the oldest of which have been dated to 1000 years before the Christian era. The archaeological evidence that has been found (and that is still being found) has made it possible to establish that Barrancas has been uninterruptedly inhabited at least since the 11th century, which makes it the oldest town in Venezuela and one of the oldest in the American continent.
Spanish colonization
Diego de Ordaz, a Spanish explorer obsessed with finding the legendary site of El Dorado, arrived in the village in August 1531 after traveling up the Orinoco River via the Caño Manamo. Impressed by its number of inhabitants – which he estimated at "more than 400 " ('huts') – he decided to go down and meet personally with the cacique Naricagua, lord of his territories, whose name of the river Uyapari was associated with the village. The chronicler Juan de Castellanos, in his Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias (Elegies of Illustrious Men of the Indies'), describes it as "a powerful town of great people that on the ravines was placed the Cacique of Uyapari lordship".
The Capuchin missionary Friar Gerónimo de Muro, with the help of the Carib (Kalina), Cuaca and Chaima people, founded the town of , also known as San Antonio de Capayacuar, on 7 August 1713.
On 20 April 1731, the Aragonese friar Antonio de Blesa founded Santo Domingo de Guzmán de Caycuar; the area was inhabited by Chaima people and outcasts when the Capuchin missionaries arrived. The settlement would later be called Caicara de Maturín.
A Catholic mission of Chaima Indians with the Capuchin missionary Pedro de Gelsa founded the San Miguel Arcangel de Caripe settlement on 12 October 1734, which would later become Caripe.
Maturín was founded on 7 December 1760 by the Capuchin friar Lucas de Zaragoza.
The territory where Aguasay is now located was founded in 1769 by Friar Manuel de La Mata.
Uracoa was founded in 1784 by Friar José de Manzanera. In 1799 the German geographer Alexander von Humboldt and the Frenchman Aimé Bonpland visited Caripe as part of their trip through Venezuela. Other explorers who toured the area were the Italian Agostino Codazzi (1835) and the German Ferdinand Bellermann (1843).
19th and 20th centuries In 1856, the Province of Maturín was created, separated from that of Cumaná. By 1864 the State of Maturín was ratified. But in 1879, Monagas was annexed to the and, from 1891 to 1898, it belonged to the .
In 1904, Maturín became the capital of the Monagas district of Bermúdez State, whose capital was Cumaná. For a long time, Monagas was an extremely poor state. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the people of the plains and swamps north of the Orinoco, under the rule of the Caribs, made alliances with the French and Dutch as a policy of tenacious resistance against Spanish domination. On ancient maps these lands are called Caribana, kingdom of the Caribs.
In 1909 the State of Monagas was created with its current boundaries in honor of General José Tadeo Monagas. In 1924 the Standard Oil Company started oil exploration activities in the area of Caripito, which experienced a slight repopulation. With the drilling of the Moneb No. 1 well in the Quiriquire field in 1928, oil exploitation began and the area experienced an important boost in urban development due to the arrival of migrant labor, particularly from the Caribbean Islands.
In 1929 the Standard Oil Company began to build the storage yard and the deep water dock on the San Juan River and on 15 October 1930, the tanker Creole Bueno left the port of Caripito with 20,000 barrels of oil bound for Trinidad.
In 1935, the Caripito marine terminal was inaugurated, located on the San Juan River, where Pan American Airways S-42 seaplanes arrived, which included it in their Central American and Caribbean route.
In 1936 Caripito International Airport was selected by aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan as the second stopover of their trip around the world, staying overnight at the Standard Oil Company facilities. The event was widely publicized in the international press and the company provided logistical support to continue the flight through South America.
On 15 November 1940, the city of Punta de Mata was founded. On 28 December the same year, the first oil well was drilled in that area. In addition the Legislative Assembly of Monagas considered the convenience of creating the Bolivar District and integrated the municipalities of Punceres and Colon into its territory, designating Caripito as the capital, according to the decree of 19 January 1940, signed by Governor Jose Maria Isava on 30 January of the same year.
Under the direction of the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana, several hectares of Caribbean pine were planted between Barrancas and the nearby town of Uverito, an activity that significantly boosted the development of the area. By the 1970s, it was the most important settlement and port in the state of Monagas, mainly due to the lack of land road connections to the main nearby cities, such as Tucupita (Delta Amacuro) and Puerto Ordaz (State of Bolivar), although today it continues to be an important center for the transport of goods and passengers to these cities.
In 1976, the assets of Creole were nationalized and were managed by Lagoven, later by Corpoven and now by PDVSA in association with Repsol. By closing the refinery in 1976 and the oil terminal in 2002, an attempt was made to boost agricultural activity to take advantage of the fertile areas by growing cocoa, pepper, Xanthosoma ( and ) and yucca.
The newspaper El Oriental was founded in 1982 in the city of Maturín. On 20 August 1983, the State Legislative Assembly declared the creation of the Municipal Council of Libertador Municipality, in accordance with the provisions of the Law of Political Territorial Division of the State of Monagas, allowing the creation of Libertador Municipality. Since 1989, with the administrative reforms that were approved for the whole country, the state of Monagas elected for the first time, directly and secretly, its own governor and legislative assembly (called the legislative council since 2000).
In 2021, Cosme Arzolay was temporarily appointed governor. In November the same year, Ernesto Luna was proclaimed governor.
Geography
Relief
The state has many plateaus and savannas located in the southwest. In the northeast and the southeast there are deltaic savannas in which rivers such as the San Juan, Guanipa, Caño Mánamo, and Tigre flow into. In the northwest is a group of mountains belonging to the eastern mountain range. This mountain range is divided into two massifs: the massif of el Turimiquire (in which the town of San Antonio is located) and the massif of Caripe (in which the town of Caripe is located). Cerro Negro (2000 m.) is the highest mountain of Monagas State. The mountain landscape features geological material from the Cretaceous, constituted exclusively by sedimentary rocks, predominantly sandstone, shale and limestone, with the main geological formations being El Cantil, Barranquín, Guayuta and Querecual; it has elevations between above sea level, with valleys and depressions.
Climate
The weather is hot in the area of the Llanos, while it is cold in the mountains located in the north of the state. The average temperature in the low areas is between . In the area of the town of Caripe the cold temperature permits the cultivation of certain kind of typical plants from cold climates such as roses and strawberries. The level of rainfall in the state is between during the year.
The region is dominated by a rainy tropical climate with some local variations that respond to various factors such as altitude, wind and proximity to the sea. Most of the state, in the southern strip, has a climate typical of savannas with dry seasons that can last up to six months, which produces a severe water shortage. The average annual temperature of Monagas is approximately . In Maturín, Temblador and Uverito, average temperatures are between .
Hydrology
The rivers of the state belong to one of the two basins that are located in the state, the Atlantic Ocean basin and the Orinoco River basin. Rivers such as the Guanipa, Tigre, Morichal Largo, Caño Mánamo, Amana, Tonoro, Tabasca, and Uracoa flow into the Orinoco River. On the other hand, the Guarapiche, San Juan, Río de Oro, and Caripe rivers flow into the Atlantic Ocean. The rivers of the Atlantic Ocean basin come from the mountains located in the northwest of the state and the rivers of the Orinoco River basin come from the many plateaus located in the southwest of Monagas State and from Anzoategui State.
It has an extensive hydrographic network with a fairly uniform geographical distribution, with the Guarapiche River standing out in the area of the tables. The rivers are numerous and of not much depth, marking the end of the piedmont in which three river basins with a north–south course are located: those of the rivers Amana-Areo, Guarapiche, and Púnceres-Aragua. From west to east the Tácata, Tonoro, Caris, Guanipa and Tigre rivers cross the state. Monagas State has a great number of moderate rivers and streams; among the main ones are:
Guarapiche River Mapirito River Tigre River Morichal Largo River San Juan River
Vegetation