The Sifontes Municipality is one of the 11

municipalities 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' ...

(

municipio A ' () or ' () is an administrative division in several Hispanophone and Lusophone nations, respectively. It is often translated as "municipality." It comes from ''mūnicipium'' (), meaning a township. In English, a municipality often is define ...

s) that makes up 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 Bolívar and, according to the 2011 census by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, the municipality has a population of 50,082. The town of Tumeremo was the

shire town A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equivalent term, shire town, is used in ...

of the Sifontes Municipality.http://www.ine.gob.ve/secciones/division/Bolivar.zip

Demographics

The Sifontes Municipality, according to a 2007 population estimate by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, has a population of 40,042 (up from 34,277 in 2000). This amounts to 2.6% of the state's population. The municipality's population density is .

Government

The mayor of the Sifontes Municipality is Carlos Chancellor, elected on December 8, 2013, with 50,23% of the vote. He replaced Marlene Vargas shortly after the elections. The municipality is divided into two (three if the Capital Tumeremo section is counted)

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

es; Dalla Costa and San Isidro.

History

Its first settlers were Guayan Indians and Kamaracotos, coming from the savanna of the Divina Pastora and Tupuquen located to the left margin of the river Yuruari. They fed on hunting, fishing and agriculture. Tumeremo was founded on January 26,

1788 Events January–March * January 1 – The first edition of ''The Times'', previously ''The Daily Universal Register'', is published in London. * January 2 – Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fourth U.S ...

under the name of "Mission of Our Lady of Bethlehem of Tumeremo" by the Capuchin monks of Catalonia, among them: Fray Mariano de Perafita, Fray Bonaventura de Carrocera and Fray Tomas de Santa Eugenia. Tumeremo means "Painted Snake", in the dialect of the first Indians who inhabited these lands. During the Campaign of Guayana, General

Manuel Piar Manuel Carlos María Francisco Piar Gómez (April 28, 1774 – October 16, 1817) was General-in-Chief of the army fighting Spain during the Venezuelan War of Independence. Heritage and early life The son of Fernando Alonso Piar y Lottyn, a Spani ...

fights against the realists to seize the missions of the kingdom of Spain. After releasing Tumeremo, the Spanish survivors were imprisoned and sentenced to death. From there, the city was a strategic site and barracks for the patriot soldiers commanded by Simón Bolívar. From 1830 many indigenous and other populations began to emerge around Tumeremo.

In 1894, a group of British settlers who came from the British Guyana tried to take part of the present municipal territory, before which General Domingo Antonio Sifontes founded in March 2nd of the same year the population of

El Dorado El Dorado () is a mythical city of gold supposedly located somewhere in South America. The king of this city was said to be so rich that he would cover himself from head to foot in gold dust – either daily or on certain ceremonial occasions � ...

in which it established a military position, then expelled the settlers from the area. General Sifontes became a local hero in recognition of the defense of Venezuelan sovereignty. The name of the municipality takes its name in honor to the general Antonio Domingo Sifontes, but the jurisdiction abbreviated its name li In 2013, 60% of all malaria cases in Venezuela occurred in Sifontes.

Fauna, flora and vegetation

The municipality of Sifontes lies in the

Guianan Highlands moist forests The Guayanan Highlands moist forests (NT0124) is an ecoregion in the south of Venezuela, the north of Brazil, and also within Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. It is in the Amazon biome. It encompasses an upland region with diverse fauna and f ...

ecoregion, and the major habitat type is

tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Description TSMF is generally found in la ...

.''The Nature Conservancy'' (2009) TNC terrestrial ecoregions

. Based on: Olson, D. M. and E. Dinerstein. 2002. The Global 200: Priority ecoregions for global conservation. (PDF file) Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 89:125-126. Common birds include the Orange-winged Parrot ('' Amazona amazonica''), Painted Parakeet ('' Pyrrhura picta''), White Bellbird ('' Procnias alba''), Helmeted Pygmy-Tyrant ('' Lophotriccus galeatus''), Fiery-shouldered Parakeet ('' Pyrrhura egregia''), Blue-headed Parrot ('' Pionus menstruus''). At least 58 species of

dung beetles Dung beetles are beetles that feed on feces. All species of dung beetle belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, most of them to the subfamilies Scarabaeinae and Aphodiinae of the family Scarabaeidae (scarab beetles). As most species of Scara ...

and 73 of

butterflies Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

have been reported in systematic surveys. Among the most common species of dung beetles are '' Canthon triangularis'', '' Canthon variabilis'', '' Deltochilum guildingii'', '' Eurysternus caribaeus'', '' Onthophagus rubrescens'', '' Sylvicanthon bridarollii'', and the emblematic '' Oxysternon festivum''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sifontes Municipality Municipalities of Bolívar (state)

Demographics

Government

History

Fauna, flora and vegetation

See also

References