Caracas officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the centre of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas. It is Venezuela’s largest urban agglomeration and the country’s primary centre of industry, commerce, education, and culture. Founded in 1567 as Santiago de León de Caracas, the city grew slowly until the 1940s, after which it expanded by monumental proportions, and its influence came to extend to even the remotest parts of the country. In addition to its role as the national capital, Caracas serves as the seat of government for the Capital District, comprising an area of 167 square miles . The city itself, however, spreads across the Capital District boundary, a considerable part of its area lying in the state of Miranda, which borders the district on the east and south.

Caracas Caracas is the capital and largest city of Venezuela
The valley is close to the Caribbean Sea, separated from the coast by a steep 2,200-metre-high mountain range, Cerro El Ávila; to the south there are more hills and mountains. The Metropolitan Region of Caracas has an estimated population of almost 3 million inhabitants. It is the seventh largest metropolitan area in terms of population in Latin America. Strictly speaking, the centre of the city is still Catedral, located near Bolívar Square, even though it is assumed that it is Plaza Venezuela, located in the Los Caobos neighbourhood. Chacaíto area, Luis Brión Square and El Rosal neighborhood are also considered the geographic center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas.Businesses in the city include service companies, banks, and malls. The Caracas Stock Exchange and Petróleos de Venezuela are headquartered in Caracas. PDVSA is the largest company in Venezuela. Caracas is also Venezuela's cultural capital, with many restaurants, theaters, museums, and shopping centers. Caracas has some of the tallest skyscrapers in Latin America, such as the Parque Central Towers.Caracas has been considered one of the most important cultural, tourist, industrial and economic centres of Latin America. The Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas is one of the most important in South America. The Museum of Fine Arts and the National Art Gallery of Caracas are also noteworthy.
 

• Caracas city limits border an area measuring 300 square miles (777 square kilometers), within which live approximately 3.3 million people
   
• Caracas is home to the 5th largest oil exporter in the world (Petroleos de Venezuela)
   
• There are only two seasons in Caracas – the wet and the dry seasons
   
• The number of policemen on Caracas streets have been greatly reduced due to the lack of budget money. This contributed further to the revelry of crime
   
• The highest point in Caracas is 1,400 meters (4,600 feet) above sea level and the lowest point is 870 meters (2,850 feet) above sea level
   
• The annual average temperature is approximately 23.8 °C (75 °F), with the average of the coldest month (January) 22.8 °C (73 °F) and the average of the warmest month (July) 25.0 °C (77 °F), which gives a small annual thermal amplitude of 2.2 °C (4.0 °F)
   

Caracas is the seat of the national government, which includes executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The city itself is governed through the Metropolitan District of Caracas, which administers the entire Capital District and four municipalities in the neighbouring state of Miranda. Also influential in local affairs, since the early days of colonial settlement, is the Municipal Council of Caracas. Caracas has been the seat of a bishopric of the Roman Catholic Church since 1535 and of an archbishopric since 1804.For almost three centuries of settlement in the valley, local water supplies were considered abundant. Not until 1940 did water shortages become critical, but since that date a continued search for new sources has been required to meet the city’s growing demand. Water supply remains one of the most critical problems to be resolved as the city continues to grow. Also of major concern are waste disposal, contamination, and pollution. Raw sewage is discharged directly into the Guaire River, and air pollution results from industry and severe traffic congestion within the relatively small, enclosed valley.

In the last half of the 20th century, both government and private investments in Venezuela focused on Caracas, with the result that the city prospered beyond all others. Immigrants have arrived in massive numbers from the rest of Venezuela, as well as from most European countries. Increasingly, Caracas has become a city of high-rise apartments that provide clean, modern, and attractive housing. Yet sprawled across the hillsides are countless thousands of ranchitos, homes constructed of corrugated metal, cardboard, or other scrap materials. The construction of new housing is impressive but remains totally inadequate to meet the continually increasing demand. Since the 1960s, large blocks of uniform dwellings have gradually replaced old homes in the Spanish colonial style, of which few now remain.

Health facilities in Caracas, like those of most large urban centres, have been challenged by the rapidly growing population, pollution, and the problems of treating a large poor population. Within the metropolitan area there are numerous clinics, sanatoriums, hospitals, and rest homes that provide health care for the capital’s inhabitants.

Under the constitution of Venezuela, municipal governments have two branches: the executive and the legislative .n 8 March 2000, the year after a new constitution was introduced in Venezuela, it was decreed in Gaceta Official N° 36,906 that the Metropolitan District of Caracas would be created and that some of the powers of the Libertador, Chacao, Baruta, Sucre, and El Hatillo municipalities would be delegated to the Alcaldía Mayor, physically located in the large Libertador municipality, in the center of the city.[ The Metropolitan District of Caracas was suppressed on 20 December 2017 by the Constituent National Assembly of Venezuela.

Businesses that are located here include service companies, banks, and malls, among others. It has a largely service-based economy, apart from some industrial activity in its metropolitan area. The Caracas Stock Exchange and Petróleos de Venezuela are headquartered here. The PDVSA is the largest company in Venezuela, and negotiates all the international agreements for the distribution and export of petroleum. When the company existed, the airline Viasa had its headquarters in the Torre Viasa.Several international companies and embassies are located in El Rosal and Las Mercedes, in the north of the Baruta municipality and the south of the Chacao municipality. Small and medium-size industry contributes to the Caracas economy. The city provides communication and transportation infrastructure between the metropolitan area and the rest of the country. Important industries in Caracas include chemicals, textiles, leather, food, iron and wood products. There are also rubber and cement factories. Its GDP is US$70 billion and the GDP per Capita is.USD 24,000. However, Caracas is now one of the cheapest cities for tourists, according to The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Most important in the economic life of Caracas is the tertiary, or service, sector. This includes wholesale and retail trade, transportation and public utilities, education and health care, and especially government. The city serves as headquarters for most of Venezuela’s commercial and industrial firms, its banks and insurance companies, and government agencies both foreign and domestic. Nearly all countries of the world maintain embassies or consulates within the city. In Caracas, as in any city of dynamic growth, the construction trades are yet another source of livelihood. Chronic unemployment nevertheless remains and is only partially relieved by activities such as street vending, peddling, and shoe shining.

A major factor that has contributed to the lack of foreign visitors has been poor transport for tourists. Venezuela has limited railway systems and airlines. High crime rates and the negative attitude of the Venezuelan population towards tourism also contributed to the poor evaluation. In an attempt to attract more foreign visitors, the Venezuelan Ministry of Tourism invested in multiple hotel infrastructures. The largest hotel investment has been in the Hotel Alba Caracas. The cost for the general maintenance of the north and south towers of the hotel is approximately 231.5 million Venezuelan bolivars. Although the Venezuelan Ministry of Tourism has taken the initiative to recognize the importance of the tourism industry, the Venezuelan government has not placed the tourism industry as an economic priority. In 2013, the budget for the Ministry of Tourism was only 173.8 million bolivars, while the Ministry of the Youth received approximately 724.6 million bolivars.

Caracas is linked directly with other major urban centres of the world by air and ocean transport. Maiquetía Airport, located 10 miles by road from Caracas on the coast, provides international connections as well as domestic flights to all parts of the republic. Two smaller airports, La Carlota and Francisco de Miranda, also serve the city. La Guaira and, to a lesser extent, Puerto Cabello are the natural seaports for Caracas and handle most of its import and export trade. A modern superhighway, including two long tunnels through the mountains, leads from Caracas to Maiquetía, La Guaira, and various beaches and resort areas along the coast. Within the city large numbers of buses, private automobiles, and taxis provide transportation, but during rush hours they clog the streets in what has become an increasing problem of traffic congestion. The public transportation system, although deficient, improved greatly with the inauguration, in 1983, of a modern subway system. Traffic is also facilitated by a system of autopistas, multilane divided highways extending east–west through the valley and connecting the city with interior locations. Railroads, which once provided Caracas with vital links to the sea and to interior valleys, have been abandoned in favour of highway transportation.

It covers a great part of the city and also has an integrated ticket system that combines the route of the Metro with those offered by the Metrobús, a bus service of the Caracas Metro. In 2010, the first segment of a new ariel cable car system opened, Metrocable which feeds into the larger metro system.

Buses are the main means of mass transportation. There are two bus systems: the traditional system and the Metrobús. The Los Teques Metro is a suburban mass-transit system completed in 2006 that connects Caracas with the suburban city of Los Teques. In March 2009 four of the five Caracas districts launched Plan Vía Libre to reduce traffic .