Cubagua Island or Isla de Cubagua () is the smallest and least populated of the three islands constituting the

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 ...

n state of

Nueva Esparta The Nueva Esparta State (in Spanish: ''Estado Nueva Esparta'', ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela, states of Venezuela. It comprises Margarita Island, Coche, Venezuela, Coche, and the lightly inhabited Cubagua. The state is located off the ...

, after

Margarita Island Margarita Island (, ) is the largest island in the States of Venezuela, Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta, situated off the north west coast of the country, in the Caribbean Sea. The capital city of Nueva Esparta, La Asunción, is located on the ...

and Coche Island. It is located north of the Araya Peninsula, the closest mainland area.

Geography

Topography

The island is in size, an elliptical shape with the longer axis east-west. Its area is . The coast consists of some beaches as well as cliffs from high in the south and from high in the north. The highest elevation of the flat-topped island reaches .

Climate

It is dry and lacks surface water bodies (the only freshwater is found in small underground reservoirs). Annual precipitation is , which is the value of a dry desert. Temperatures are close to year-round with little fluctuation.

Vegetation

The desert-like (

xerophytic A xerophyte () is a species of plant that has adaptations to survive in an environment with little liquid water. Examples of xerophytes include cactus, cacti, pineapple and some gymnosperm plants. The morphology (biology), morphology and physiology ...

) vegetation of the essentially barren island includes a number of

cactus A cactus (: cacti, cactuses, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae (), a family of the order Caryophyllales comprising about 127 genera with some 1,750 known species. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, ...

species such as Cardón de Dato ('' Ritterocereus griseus''), Buche, Melón de Cerro, Sabana o Monte (''Melocactus caesius''), Guamacho (''Pereskia guamacho''), and Opuntia tuna as well as a few legumes (family

Fabaceae Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

) such as Mesquite ('' Prosopis juliflora''), Divi-divi (''Caesalpinia coriaria''), Poorman's Friend (''Stylosanthes viscosa''), and the Sangre Drago (''Croton flavens'').

Fauna

The island has small populations of hares, feral goats and a large population of dogs.

Transportation

The island of Cubagua has no streets or roads. It is served by

ferries A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...

and other boats from Punta de Piedras, the capital of the

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' ...

of Tubores located to the northeast on Isla Margarita. The passage takes less than 2 hours. The boat landing pier is located at the eastern end of Playa Charagato, the main settlement of Cubagua. A

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

marking Punta Charagato lies in the northeast to aid the Isla Margarita ferry and another lighthouse is situated at Punta Brasil in the northwest to aid the ferries of Punta de Piedras and

Puerto la Cruz Puerto La Cruz () is a port city located in Anzoátegui State, in Venezuela. It is the seat of the Juan Antonio Sotillo Municipality. The city has road connections to the state capital, Barcelona, to Lecheria and to Guanta. Geography The cit ...

History

The first human settlement on Cubagua has been dated to 2325 BC, a time within the Meso-Indian Period (5000-1000 BC). In 1498, Cubagua was sighted by

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

along with Margarita island. Later in 1499 Spanish expeditions returned to exploit abundant pearl oysters, enslaving the indigenous people and harvesting the

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle (mollusc), mantle) of a living Exoskeleton, shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pear ...

s intensively. They became one of the most valuable resources of the incipient Spanish Empire in the Americas since 1501 but by 1513 the local indigenous population had been devastated. When it was realized that the

Lucayan people The Lucayan people ( ) were the original residents of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands before the European colonisation of the Americas. They were a branch of the Taínos who inhabited most of the Caribbean islands at the time. The ...

of Bahamas were practiced at diving for

conch Conch ( , , ) is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high Spire (mollusc), spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point on both ...

s the Spanish sent to the Isle of Cubagua as pearl divers. Within two years the southern Bahamas were largely depopulated. The Spanish may have carried away as many as 40,000 Lucayans by 1513. The first enslaved Africans arrived in Cubagua between 1526 and 1527 to work in pearl fishing. In 1528, Cristóbal Guerra founded the city of Nueva Cádiz, the first settlement to hold the title of "city" in Venezuela. Venezuela By Leonard Victor Dalton"> Venezuela By Leonard Victor Dalton
/ref> The city which reached a population between 1,000 and 1,500, became a synonym for the suppression by the Hispanic

Conquistadores Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. By 1531 the depletion of the

oyster beds, however, became increasingly acute, causing the Spaniards to limit pearl production. In combination with the discovery of new pearl oyster beds on the Guajira Peninsula, this led to a decline of Nueva Cádiz. By 1539 there were less than 50 people left on Cubagua. Nueva Cádiz was destroyed in an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

followed by a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

in 1541. The complete exhaustion of the pearl oyster beds of Cubagua in 1857 determined the definitive abandonment of this island and from then on it would be visited by fishermen who would improvise ranches. The ruins have been declared a National Monument of Venezuela in 1979.

Administration

Cubagua is part of the

of Tubores, one of 11 municipalities of the state of

Population

Human activity dates from the 24th century BC, but the first people did not settle here in a permanent fashion. Instead the island was used as a source of oysters, for food, and for pearls. The lack of vegetation or fresh water made permanent settlement nearly impossible. Today the island still has temporary fisherman, but few to no permanent residents. According to an unofficial population census conducted by the ''Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural'' in August 2007, the island had 51 residents of which 19 were children. The population resides in the following 4 communities in the island's northwest: *Playa Falucho *Playa Charagato (the largest settlement) *Punta Charagato *Punta la Cabecera (close to the ruins Nueva Cádiz) In addition, on some maps a settlement called Punta Arenas appears in the Southwest. Satellite images reveal about 5 buildings at that site. A small settlement of about 4 buildings can be made out about midway between Punta La Horca (the westernmost point of Cubagua) and Punta Arenas south of Punta El Lamparo. A pair of buildings can be seen on the southern bay of Manglecito just east of Punta Manglecito. The population exceeds 300 during the year when seasonal fishermen from the Venezuelan mainland state of

Sucre Sucre (; ) is the ''de jure'' capital city of Bolivia, the capital of the Chuquisaca Department and the sixth most populous city in Bolivia. Located in the south-central part of the country, Sucre lies at an elevation of . This relatively high ...

are included.

In popular culture

In 2015, Venezuelan director Jorge Thielen Armand made a short documentary about the island of Cubagua, ''Flor de la Mar''.

References

External links

Information about Cubagua Island (Spanish)detailed map (Geology)
* {{Authority control Geography of Nueva Esparta Venezuelan islands of the Leeward Antilles