Cubagua or
Isla de Cubagua is the smallest and least populated of the three islands constituting the
VenezuelaVenezuela , officially titled Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It is a continental mainland with numerous islands located off its coastline in the Caribbean Sea...
n state of
Nueva EspartaNueva Esparta is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. It comprises Margarita Island, Coche, and uninhabited Cubagua....
, after
Isla MargaritaMargarita Island is the largest island of the Nueva Esparta state in Venezuela, situated in the Caribbean Sea, off the northeastern coast of the country. The state also contains two other smaller islands: Coche and Cubagua. The capital is La Asunción, located in a river valley of the same name....
and Coche. It is located 16 km north of
Araya PeninsulaThe Araya Peninsula is a peninsula located in Venezuela just eastward out from its Caribbean coast. The town of Araya is located on its westernmost extremity.-External links:* ....
, the closest mainland area.
The island is 9.2 by 3.6 km in size, an elliptical shape with the longer axis east-west. Its area is 22.438 km². The coast consists of
cliffIn geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are...
s from five to seven meters high in the south, and from 20 to 24 meters high in the north, but there are also some
beachA beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of a body of water. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, or cobblestones...
es.
Cubagua or
Isla de Cubagua is the smallest and least populated of the three islands constituting the
VenezuelaVenezuela , officially titled Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It is a continental mainland with numerous islands located off its coastline in the Caribbean Sea...
n state of
Nueva EspartaNueva Esparta is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. It comprises Margarita Island, Coche, and uninhabited Cubagua....
, after
Isla MargaritaMargarita Island is the largest island of the Nueva Esparta state in Venezuela, situated in the Caribbean Sea, off the northeastern coast of the country. The state also contains two other smaller islands: Coche and Cubagua. The capital is La Asunción, located in a river valley of the same name....
and Coche. It is located 16 km north of
Araya PeninsulaThe Araya Peninsula is a peninsula located in Venezuela just eastward out from its Caribbean coast. The town of Araya is located on its westernmost extremity.-External links:* ....
, the closest mainland area.
Topography
The island is 9.2 by 3.6 km in size, an elliptical shape with the longer axis east-west. Its area is 22.438 km². The coast consists of
cliffIn geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are...
s from five to seven meters high in the south, and from 20 to 24 meters high in the north, but there are also some
beachA beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of a body of water. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, or cobblestones...
es. The highest elevation of the flat-topped island reaches 32 meters.
Climate
It is dry and lacks surface water bodies (the only freshwater is found in small underground reservoirs). Annual precipitation is 250 mm, which is the value of a dry
desertA desert is a landscape or region that receives almost no precipitation. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation. In the Köppen climate classification system,...
. Temperatures are close to 25
°CCelsius is a temperature scale that is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius , who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death...
year-round, with little fluctuation.
Vegetation
The
desertA desert is a landscape or region that receives almost no precipitation. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation. In the Köppen climate classification system,...
-like (xerophytic)
vegetationVegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
of the essentially barren island includes a number of Cactaceae such as cardón de dato (
Ritterocereus griseus), buche, melón de cerro, sabana o monte (
Melocactus caesius), guamacho (
Pereskia guamacho), and
Opuntia tunaOpuntia, also known as nopales , or Paddle Cactus from the resemblance to the ball-and-paddle toy, is a genus in the cactus family, Cactaceae....
, as well as a few
legumeIn botanical writing legume is a plant in the family Fabaceae , or a fruit of these specific plants. A'legume' fruit is a simple dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually dehisces on two sides. A common name for this type of fruit is a pod, although "pod" is also applied to a few...
s, including members of the family
FabaceaeFabaceae or Leguminosae is a large and economically important family of flowering plants, which is commonly known as the legume family, pea family, bean family or pulse family. The name 'Fabaceae' comes from the defunct genus Faba, now included into Vicia...
such as yaque, cuj‚ or
honey mesquiteHoney Mesquite is a species of small to medium tree in the legume family, Fabaceae. It is native to the southwestern United States and Mexico, but has been introduced to at least a half-dozen other countries...
(
Prosopis juliflora), guatapamare or dividivi (
Caesalpinia coriaria), poorman’s friend (
Stylosanthes viscosa), and the Euphorbiaceae sangre drago (
Croton flavens).
Transportation
There are no streets or roads on the island.
Cubagua is served by
ferriesA ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
and other boats from
Punta de PiedrasPunta de Piedras is a settlement in the Colombian Department of Magdalena. It is located 35km south-west of Pivijay.-References:...
, the capital of Tubores
municipalityA municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly denotes a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them. A municipality is typically governed by a mayor and a city council or municipal council.The notion of municipality...
, located eight kilometers to the northeast, on Isla Margarita. The passage takes less than two hours. The boat landing
pierA pier is a raised walkway over water, supported by widely spread piles or pillars. The lighter structure of a pier allows tides and currents to flow almost unhindered, whereas the more solid foundations of a quay or the closely-spaced piles of a wharf can act as breakwaters, and are consequently...
is located at the eastern end of Playa Charagato, the main settlement of Cubagua.
There is a
lighthouseA lighthouse is a tower, building, or framework designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire and used as an aid to navigation and to pilots at sea....
marking Punta Charagato in the northeast (which the ferry from Isla Margarita passes), and another one at Punta Brasil in the northwest, to aid the ferries from Punta de Piedras to
Puerto la CruzPuerto la Cruz, is a port city located in Anzoategui state in Venezuela's capital Sotillo municipality. Is bound to the state capital, Barcelona, also to Dairy and turn to Guanta, and shaping the metropolitan area's largest and most important eastern Venezuela.- Geography :Located directly on the...
that pass by Cubagua on the west.
History
The first human settlement on Cubagua has been dated to 2325 B.C., a time within the Meso-Indian Period (5000 to 1000 B.C.).
Cubagua was discovered for Europeans by
Christopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere...
in 1498. Its historically most important resources have been the
pearlA pearl is a hard, generally spherical object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and...
s of pearl oysters, already in pre-European times. The peak of its exploitation occurred from 1508 to 1520. By 1531 signs of resource exhaustion became evident. Between 1530 and 1535
fishingFishing is the activity of catching fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
resources were exploited at peak level, to support a growing population.
In 1528, Cristóbal Guerra founded the city "La Villa de la Nueva Cádiz", the first Spanish settlement in Venezuela, and one of the first ones in the
AmericasThe Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. America may be ambiguous in English, as it is more commonly used to refer to the United States of America...
. The city became a synonym for the suppression by the Hispanic
ConquistadorConquistador is the term widely used to refer to the Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th through the 17th centuries following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...
es in
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
. Nueva Cádiz, which reached a population between 1000 and 1500, was destroyed in an
earthquakeAn earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes are recorded with a seismometer, also known as a seismograph...
in 1541.
The ruins have been declared a National Monument of Venezuela in 1979.
Administration
Cubagua is part of the
municipalityA municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly denotes a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them. A municipality is typically governed by a mayor and a city council or municipal council.The notion of municipality...
of Tubores, one of eleven municipalities of the state of
Nueva EspartaNueva Esparta is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. It comprises Margarita Island, Coche, and uninhabited Cubagua....
.
Population
Human activity dates from the 24th century BC, but the first people did not settle here in a permanent fashion. Instead the island was used as a source of oysters, for food, and for pearls. The lack of vegetation or fresh water made permanent settlement nearly impossible. Today the island still has temporary fisherman, but few to no permanent residents.
According to an unofficial
censusA "census" is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population.In other words every 10 years...next one would be in 2010 The term is used mostly in connection with...
of population by the
Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural in August 2007, the island had a population of 51, of which 19 were children. This population resides in four sub-communities in the northeast of the island, from west to east:
- Playa Falucho
- Playa Charagato (the largest settlement)
- Punta Charagato
- Punta la Cabecera (close to the ruins Nueva Cádiz)
In addition, on some maps a settlement called Punta Arenas appears in the southwest. Satellite images reveal about five buildings at that site. A small settlement of about four buildings can be made out about midway between Punta La Horca (the westernmost point of Cubagua) and Punta Arenas, south of Punta El Lamparo. Two buildings can be seen on the southern bay of Manglecito, just east of Punta Manglecito.
If the itinerant fishermen from the rest of
Nueva EspartaNueva Esparta is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. It comprises Margarita Island, Coche, and uninhabited Cubagua....
from the Venezuelan mainland (
State of SucreEstado Sucre is one of the 23 states into which Venezuela is divided. The state capital is Cumaná. Sucre State covers a total surface area of 11,800 km² and, in 2007, had an estimated population of 916,600....
) are included, the population exceeds 300 during the year.
External links