Local Public Planning Councils, Local Councils of Public Planning or Consejos Locales de Planificación Pública (CLPP), are institutions of

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-l ...

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 ...

as enacted by the 1999

constitution of Venezuela The Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela (CRBV)) is the current and twenty-sixth constitution of Venezuela. It was drafted in mid-1999 by a constituent assembly that h ...

. They are a subdivision of municipal government that is

unitary Unitary may refer to: Mathematics * Unitary divisor * Unitary element * Unitary group * Unitary matrix * Unitary morphism * Unitary operator * Unitary transformation * Unitary representation * Unitarity (physics) * ''E''-unitary inverse semigrou ...

. The 335 municipalities in the country are divided into 1,084 civil

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

es. They serve as functions for community control of local services and resources. Due to government functioning on a majority basis, the coalitions that this entails have hindered effective functioning of the process.

History

Colonial Venezuela Spanish expeditions led by Columbus and Alonso de Ojeda reached the coast of present-day Venezuela in 1498 and 1499. The first colonial exploitation was of the pearl oysters of the "Pearl Islands". Spain established its first permanent South Ame ...

led to the establishment of the 23

states of Venezuela The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a federation made up of twenty-three states ('' es, estados''), a Capital District ('' es, Distrito Capital'') and the Federal Dependencies ('' es, Dependencias Federales''), which consist of many islan ...

out of the colonial provinces. Since independence in 1821, a variety of states have been merged, culminating in an expansion by three states in the late 1990s. The

Federal War The Federal War ( es, Guerra Federal) — also known as the Great War or the Five Year War — was a civil war (1859–1863) in Venezuela between the Conservative party and the Liberal party over the monopoly the Conservatives held over govern ...

of 1859-1863 between the conservatives and liberals led to federalism and hindered devolution as a result of the ensuing '' caudillismo''. A 1969

presidential decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used for ...

led to the grouping of the states into 10 administrative regions and further consolidated the federal government's authority.

References

{{Venezuela topics History of Venezuela Politics of Venezuela Political organizations based in Venezuela Local government