Why El Tocuyo is the Mother City of Venezuela

The nickname "Mother City" is not anniversary rhetoric: it has documented historical foundation. Between 1546 and 1620, El Tocuyo was the effective capital of the Province of Venezuela and the operating base from which the expeditions that founded a good part of the country's cities departed.

The eldest daughters

• Carache (initial Trujillo) — 1548, Juan de Villegas
• Borburata — 1549, Juan de Villegas
• Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto — May 1552, Juan de Villegas
• Valencia — 1555, Alonso Díaz Moreno
• Definitive Trujillo — 1557, Diego García de Paredes
• San Cristóbal — 1561, Juan Maldonado
• Caracas — 1567, Diego de Losada (with Tocuyo logistical support)
• Carora — 1569 / refounded 1572

Why El Tocuyo and not Coro

Coro was the nominal capital but had a hostile climate and poor soils. El Tocuyo, on the other hand, offered a fertile valley, an abundant river and good pastures: that is why it became the real operational base from which the conquest of central-western Venezuela was carried out.

→ Read the complete guide with the list of cities founded from El Tocuyo