Barcelona

Barcelona, city, capital of Anzoátegui estado (state), northeastern Venezuela. Established in 1671 from a merger of the Cristobal de Cumanagoto and the Cerro Nuevo settlements, the town was named for the capital of the Spanish home province of its Catalan founders. On the west bank of the Neverí River, 3 miles (5 km) inland from the Caribbean Sea and about 200 miles (320 km) east of Caracas, it lies in the Barcelona Gap, through which the Llanos (plains) extend from the interior to the sea.

Barcelona is an important cattle-shipping centre as well as an outlet for coffee grown in the high interior valleys and for the important oil fields nearest the northern Venezuelan coast. It is the site of La Casa Fuerte, a national historic monument that serves as a symbol of Venezuela’s independence movement. Although the city’s commercial and industrial development has been erratic, it has prospered as a part of the Barcelona–Guanta–Puerto La Cruz industrial complex. The country’s principal coalfields (lignite and semibituminous) are nearby. Pop. (2001) 327,788; (2011) 382,881.