The Juan Antonio Sotillo Municipality is one of the 21 municipalities

Municipalities of Venezuela

Municipalities of Venezuela are divisions of the states.-Amazonas:#Alto Orinoco #Atabapo #Atures #Autana #Manapiare #Maroa...

 (municipio

Municipio

Municipio and Município are terms used for country subdivisions. They are often translated as municipality.-Overview:...

s) that makes up the eastern Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

n state of Anzoátegui

Anzoátegui

Anzoátegui State , is one of the 23 component states of Venezuela, located in the northeastern region of the country. Anzoátegui is well known for its beautiful beaches that attract many visitors. Its coast consists of a single beach approximately 100 km long...

 and, according to a 2007 population estimate by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, the municipality has a population of 247,979. The town of Puerto La Cruz

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, and has the potential to become the largest and most important metropolitan...

 is the shire town

County seat

A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

 of the Juan Antonio Sotillo Municipality. The municipality is named for the nineteenth century Venezuelan military leader Juan Antonio Sotillo

Juan Antonio Sotillo

General Juan Antonio Sotillo was a nineteenth century military leader from Venezuela. During his long life, a very uncommon circumstance for a military leader at the time, he served under the army of Venezuelan general Simón Bolívar, as well as in most of the Venezuelan nineteenth century civil...

.

History

The history of Puerto La Cruz began when the Spanish conquerors arrived to Venezuela. In 1780, the Christian Mission of Pozuelos (Pozuelos means small wells) was founded, with natives being the majority of the population.

On 9 April 1862, a group of 26 families from Margarita Island decided to settle in Pozuelos Bay.

The "Virgen del Amparo" (Virgin of Amparo) and the "Santa Cruz" (Holy Cross) were adopted as the main religious identities of the town. On 8 November of every year since then is celebrated as the "Dia de la Virgen del Amparo" (Day of the Virgin of Amparo) and 3 May as the "Dia de la Santa Cruz" (Day of the Holy Cross).

In 1868, the first Church was built and the name of the town was changed to Puerto de la Santa Cruz (Port of the Holy Cross), but as the years passed people got used to calling it just "Puerto La Cruz".

Demographics

The Juan Antonio Sotillo Municipality, according to a 2007 population estimate by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, has a population of 247,979 (up from 217,182 in 2000). This amounts to 16.8% of the state's population. The municipality's population density is 1016.31 PD/sqkm.

Government

The mayor of the Juan Antonio Sotillo Municipality is Stalin Fuentes, elected on 23 November 2008 with 52% of the vote. He replaced Nelson Moreno Mierez shortly after the elections. The municipality is divided into two parish

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

es; Capital Puerto La Cruz and Pozuelos.

External links

• juansotillo-anzoategui.gob.ve