Elorza is a town in the Apure State in

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

. Elorza is on the region of the Venezuelan Llanos and it had 26.800 inhabitants as of 2012. It is the capital of the Rómulo Gallegos

Municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

. The current mayor is Solfreddy Solorzano. This town had shared its

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

with the neighboring

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

until the government of

Eleazar López Contreras José Eleazar López Contreras (5 May 1883 – 2 January 1973) was the president of Venezuela between 1935 and 1941. He was an army general and one of Juan Vicente Gómez's collaborators, serving as his War Minister from 1931. In 1939, Contr ...

. Back then the Venezuelan part was called Elorza, honoring the Venezuelan hero Andrés Elorza, and the Colombian part was called El Viento (The Wind) In August 2001, Venezuela completed a nationwide conversion of land-line phones to three-digit area codes and seven-digit local numbers. Elorza, Mantecal and Bruzual now have the area code 240.

Geography

It is in the region of the Venezuelan Llanos in the Apure State, it is located at and is east of the

n border. It is at the side of the Arauca River and in the middle of a plain used for agriculture at 95 meters over the sea level. Its

Area Code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

is 240 and its

postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or numerical digit, digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, inclu ...

is 7011. Roads to the town are two: One that connects it to Mantecal and Bruzual, th
Troncal 19 Road
the other that connects it to La Trinidad de Orichuna and Guasdualito, th
Via El Caribe Road
Elorza also has access to the

Arauca river The Arauca River () rises in the Andes Mountains of north-central Colombia and ends at the Orinoco in Venezuela. For part of its run it is the boundary between Colombia and Venezuela. The major city on its banks is Arauca, Arauca, Arauca, Col ...

which allows

fluvial A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of its course if it ru ...

transportation and an airport.

Etymology

The antique Misión de San José de Arichuna, with time became known as El Viento, this town grew and spread along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. On March 10, 1866 the Legislative Assembly of the Apure State decided that the part of the population that was in the Venezuelan part would become known as Elorza, honoring

Colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...

José Andrés Elorza, who was a Venezuelan independence Hero. This decision was executed on the 12th of that same month. The name of José Andrés Elorza was chosen since he had joined the army of Paez with the rank

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

in La Trinidad de Orichuna, a nearby town to El Viento.

Economy

In March 2018, Elorza began to issue its own currency, in response to the

hyperinflation In economics, hyperinflation is a very high and typically accelerating inflation. It quickly erodes the real versus nominal value (economics), real value of the local currency, as the prices of all goods increase. This causes people to minimiz ...

of the hard bolívar.

References

{{reflist Populated places in Apure

Geography

Etymology

Economy

See also

References