City of the northwest of Venezuela (located to the northwest of Lake Maracaibo), capital of Zulia state and of its municipality namesake. It was founded in 1529 by A. Alfinger’s expedition, re-founded in 1569 as Ciudad Rodrigo (Rodrigo City) and depopulated in 1573. It was eventually re-founded by Pedro Maldonado in 1574, with the name of Nueva Zamora, with lake and seaport functions. It has an area of 557 km2. It is the main port and industrial center of the rich oil basin of Maracaibo. It is on the west bank of the channel that links Lake Maracaibo with the Gulf of Venezuela, an arm of the Caribbean Sea. It is Venezuela’s second most important city and the economic, administrative, cultural and service center of nearly the entirety of the plains and foothills that surround Lake Maracaibo. It performs commercial activities that rely on the oil and agricultural industry, and it has two major industrial parks, in Los Haticos and San Francisco, that supply the internal and external markets. Financial center of the country’s western area, it was home to Venezuela’s first private banking.
