El Tocuyo is a fertile valley and city in west-central
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
at elevation. It is located in south-central
Lara State about 60 km southwest of
Barquisimeto
Barquisimeto (; guc, Watkisimeeta) is a city in Venezuela. It is the capital of the state of Lara and head of Iribarren Municipality. It is an important urban, industrial, commercial and transportation center of the country, recognized as the f ...
. The town of El Tocuyo was founded by
Juan de Carvajal
Juan de Carvajal was a Spanish conquistador and one of the first governors of Venezuela Province.
Carvajal was born in Spain in 1509. He was in Venezuela in the 1540s, a time when territory there had been assigned to the Welser family by the E ...
in 1545 on the banks of the
Tocuyo River and it was the administrative capital of
Venezuela Province from 1546 to 1548. Its original name was Nuestra Señora de la Pura y Limpia Concepción del Tocuyo. El Tocuyo is now just the municipal seat of
Morán. Its population is 41,327 (2001).
The surrounding area has good soil and an ideal climate for agriculture, dry and warm with plenty of water available from the Tocuyo River. The area has been occupied since prehistoric times. When the
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
arrived they found the
Gayones Indians, who inhabited this valley, sowing corn and other agricultural products as cotton and yucca. After the Spanish came, sugar cane was, for centuries, the biggest crop; but since 1980 vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, chiles, and potatoes are taking its place.
El Tocuyo Award
Formerly known as "
Ruth Ocumárez Award" which being granted to those contestants in
Miss Universe
Miss Universe is an annual international beauty pageant that is run by a United States and Thailand based Miss Universe Organization.Natalie Tadena (July 2, 2015"Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant Lands on Reelz Cable Channel". ''The Wall Stre ...
that was highly favored by the pageant fans to be in the semifinals but didn't made to be in the first cut.
Notable personalities
*
Lisandro Alvarado (b. 1858 - d. 1929) - Doctor, Naturalist, Historian, Ethnologist and Linguist
*
Mariam Habach (b. 1996) -
Miss Venezuela 2015 and
Miss Universe 2016
Miss Universe 2016 was the 65th Miss Universe pageant, held at the Mall of Asia Arena, in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines on January 30, 2017. This is the second time in the history of the competition that the pageant skipped an entire year, ...
contestant
*
Zulmarys Sánchez (b. 1987) - Venezuelan olympic sprint canoer
References
External links
"Historia de Venezuela para nosotros: El Tocuyo" ''Fundación Empresas Polar'' in Spanish, title "History of Venezuela for us: El Tocuyo"
* https://web.archive.org/web/20160303220628/http://www.eltocuyo.8m.com/
{{Authority control
Cities in Lara (state)
Populated places established in 1545
1545 establishments in the Spanish Empire