Venezuela is situated in South America next to Colombia, Brazil and Guyana and was originally inhabited by Carib, Arawak and Chibcha peoples who farmed and hunted along the coast, the Andean mountain range and the Orinoco River. The first permanent Spanish settlement was established in 1522 and Venezuela became a Spanish colony until independence in 1811 as part of Gran Colombia, from which it later seceded.
Venezuela was governed by a series of military dictatorships until 1958 when Romulo Betancourt won the first democratic presidential election. The 1970s oil crisis brought windfall profits to Venezuela