Ciudad Bolivar

History

Originally a Spanish settlement, it was called Santo Tomé de Guayana (Saint Thomas of Guyana). The settlement was a fortified port which had to be moved on three occasions because it was constantly attacked by Carib natives and European rivals, such as the Dutch and English. The first settlements were located downstream from Ciudad Bolívar. In 1576 Saint Thomas of Guyana was located near present-day Ciudad Guayana which is at the confluence with the Caroní River. Dutch forces led by Captain Adrian Janson destroyed the town in 1579. Fernando de Berrio was present on March 11, 1619 in the destroyed Saint Thomas of Guyana with the credentials granted by the Royal Audience of Santa Fe, just a few months after the decapitation of Raleigh in 1618. The first task was the reconstruction of Saint Thomas of Guyana on the sides of Chirica, a more defensible and suitable place for tobacco cultivation. Berrio commissioned Captain Jerónimo de Grados and Alonso de Monteros to recruit indigenous in the Esequibo River, but they were captured by British pirates for whose freedom they intended to collect a ransom translated into a few quintals of tobacco in branch. Finally Saint Thomas of Guyana was refounded by Fernando de Berrio in 1620. In 1629, English and Dutch pirates, under the command of Adrian Jansz Pater, attacked and destroyed Saint Thomas of Guyana and afterwards fortified themselves in the branches and creeks of the Orinoco River. In 1637 the Dutch, settled at the mouths of the Amakura, Essequibo and Berbice, again attacked and burned Saint Thomas of Guyana and raided Trinidad. The fourth and present day city was officially founded in 1764 by Don Joaquin Moreno de Mendoza as San Tomas de la Nueva Guayana, named in honor of its diocese and for its position at the first…

Geography

Moriche palms and scrub oaks are found on the shores of the river. Species including the carob tree, the sarrapia (tonka bean), and the merecure are prevalent. Local fauna include capybaras, turtles, herons, parrots, limpets, and iguanas, and others. Fish in the area include Salminus hilarii (a species of Salminus) and Pygocentrus palometa. Under the Köppen climate classification, Ciudad Bolívar has a tropical savanna climate (Aw) with distinctive dry and wet seasons. The average temperature is which remains fairly constant throughout the year, varying between in January to in October. The dry season, which runs from December to April has little precipitation during these months and temperatures tend to be cooler than the wet season but still hot, regularly reaching during the day and dropping to during the night. The wet season which runs from May to early November sees and increase in precipitation levels although days without any precipitation are common. Temperatures tend to be slightly warmer than the dry season. On average, Ciudad Bolívar receives of precipitation per year and there are 89.3 days with measureable rainfall. The city is fairly sunny, averaging almost 2900 hours of bright sunshine or an average of 7.9 hours of sunshine per day, ranging from a high of 260.4 hours in October (8.4 hours of sunshine per day) to a low of 201.0 hours in June (or 6.7 hours of sunshine per day). | source 2 = Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (humidity 1970–1998) }}

Most-observed species

• Blue-gray Tanager

  Thraupis episcopus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  89
• Tropical Mockingbird

  Mimus gilvus (Vieillot, 1808) · Aves
  84
• Scaled Dove

  Columbina squammata (R.Lesson, 1831) · Aves
  74
• Saffron Finch

  Sicalis flaveola (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  67
• Great Kiskadee

  Pitangus sulphuratus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  61
• Eared Dove

  Zenaida auriculata (Des Murs, 1847) · Aves
  51
• Southern Caracara

  Caracara plancus (J.F.Miller, 1777) · Aves
  48
• Yellow Oriole

  Icterus nigrogularis (Hahn, 1819) · Aves
  47

Most recent

• M 4.4 — 2006-07-01
  73 km W of Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela