States of Venezuela
first-level administrative division in Venezuela
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a federation made up of twenty-three states (Spanish: estados), a Capital District (Spanish: Distrito Capital) and the Federal Dependencies (Spanish: Dependencias Federales), which consist of many islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela claims the disputed Essequibo territory as one of its states, which it calls Guayana Esequiba, but the territory is controlled by Guyana as part of six of its regions.
The states and territories of Venezuela are usually organized into regions (Spanish: regiones), although these regions are mostly geographical entities rather than administrative entities.
Historical states
Prior to the Federal War (1859–1863), the country was divided into provinces rather than states (see Provinces of Venezuela). The victorious forces were supposed to grant more autonomy to the individual states, but this was not implemented.
From 1863 to the early 1900s there were numerous territorial changes, including the merger and splitting of states, but from then until the 1990s the states were left unchanged. States that existed during this time included Guzmán Blanco State (1873–1889). Originally a renamed Aragua State, in 1881 the states of Miranda, Guárico, Nueva Esparta and the Vargas department of the Federal District were merged into the state. This was part of a territorial reorganisation reducing the number of states from 20 to 9, which was reversed in 1901.
The 1990s saw the creation of three new states: Delta Amacuro (1991), Amazonas (1994), and Vargas (1998, renamed La Guaira in 2019).
“States of Venezuela” enters the record as first-level administrative division in Venezuela. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what States, Venezuela and first-level can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“States of Venezuela” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, States, Venezuela and first-level provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q501094. The first chronological checks are 1859, 1863, 1873 and 1889.
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This entry incorporates text from “States of Venezuela” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.