Puerto Ayacucho

Puerto Ayacucho is the capital and largest city of Amazonas State in southern Venezuela, standing on a granite outcrop on the Orinoco River opposite the Colombian village of Casuarito. It grew from a river port built to move goods, chiefly rubber, past the Atures Rapids in the late 19th century. Construction began in 1924 on the initiative of the government of Juan Vicente Gomez, and the town was officially founded on 9 December 1928 by the engineer and geologist Santiago Aguerrevere, who named it in commemoration of the Battle of Ayacucho. It replaced San Fernando de Atabapo as the administrative centre of the territory that later became Amazonas State. A 1940 map showed about 120 houses and between 600 and 700 inhabitants, and growth then accelerated from the 1970s through migration from within the territory and from neighbouring states. Today it is the most important town of Amazonas, with an airport, two national highways and tourism into the surrounding rainforest.