Mérida (state)
Mérida (state)
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Mérida (state)

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Mérida (state)

The State of Mérida commonly known simply as Mérida (Spanish: Estado Bolivariano de Mérida, IPA: [esˈtaðo ðe ˈmeɾiða]) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Mérida, in the Libertador Municipality.

Located in the Western Andean Region, Mérida State covers a total surface area of 11,300 square kilometres (4,363 sq mi), making it the fifteenth-largest in Venezuela. In 2011, had a census population of 828,592, the fourteenth most populous.

According to recent studies in archaeology, history and anthropology, The Andean region seems to have been inhabited since very remote times (perhaps several thousand years) by unknown groups that have left very few traces.

Then, around our era, another ethnic group of great cultural importance arrives in the region, perhaps of Chibcha origin, since they share with these their mythology, funeral and settlement patterns, housing construction, agricultural techniques, etc. When the Spanish arrive in the Andean Cordillera it will be with this second group you will come in contact with. It is assumed that the majority of today's farmers are descendants of this Chibcha trunk group.

Another later and significant influence for the Andean pre-Hispanic culture are the Arawak groups, belonging to the most important ethnic groups of South America and the Caribbean, which migrated to the Venezuelan Andes during the 9th century AD. Finally, shortly before the arrival of the Spanish, we have a late penetration of Caribbean groups into the Andean region.

From the data of the chroniclers and the archaeological testimonies, today we know that the indigenous agricultural techniques like the irrigation systems (called acequias by the Spaniards) and the cultivation in terraces or andenes (used in all the South American Andes to take advantage of the slopes of the mountains) show for the time of the contact the existence of an economic infrastructure that supposes the presence of a numerous native population in the Andean Mountain range, as well as the existence of a hierarchical political organization and a network of communications in all the zone.

The Spaniards will use this indigenous population base for the development of the society they intended to establish in America. An important area of encomiendas and doctrinal towns. Thanks to this, the current toponymy of the Venezuelan Andes has preserved the names of the many indigenous groups that inhabited this region: Timoto-Cuica, Chama, Mocotíes, Mucuchíes, Tabayes, Mucutuy, Aricagua, etc.

In 1558 Juan Rodríguez Suárez founded the city of Mérida, in the name of the Corregimiento de Tunja, in honor of his native city of Mérida in Spain. In December 1607 Merida was separated from the Corregimiento de Tunja and united with the government of La Grita forming the corregimiento de Merida y La Grita. On November 3, 1622 it became the governorship of Merida with Juan Pacheco Maldonado as governor.

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