Now, about Venezuela and the Guianas, with the old map bellow:
This region was the first mainland American area discovered and colonized by the Spanish. After the founding of few settlements in the area, the Spanish Habsburg crown ceded the colony for Augsburg bankers, who hoped to find El Dorado and its riches. After the failure of this German colony, the area was again Spanish, who limited the colonization mostly to coastal areas as there wasn't any easily source of gold and silver. By mid-18th century, Venezuela was part of the New Granada viceroyalty and some of the earlier efforts for independence began here, resulting in an constant period of warfare that devasted much of the country. By early 19th century, Venezuelan-born Simón Bolívar established the independent Gran Colombia republic, but the country soon divided and thus modern Venezuela emerged. The new country was plagued with political and economic instability during much of the century, becoming also one of the areas where the US and European powers disputed influence when the US was capable to effectively extent Monroe Doctrine to South America. During WW1, oil was discovered and soon became the main product of Venezuela, but most of the extraordinary riches were concentrated in the hands of few, usually the allies of the caudillo in power. Thus, during much of 20th century Venezuela continued to suffer from instability, with periods of growth and peace under a strongman or democratic government followed by crises, coups and armed insurgency, a pattern that seems to continue nowadays given the current crisis.
The Guianas are quite different in many senses from the other South American countries. While initially claimed by the Spanish, the area was largely left unoccupied (given the lack of accessible mineral wealth and indigenous hostility to Europeans) and the colonization really began in early 17th century, when the Dutch established the first colonies near the Essequibo river. In the following centuries, Britain and the Dutch fought and divided the colony between them, while the French successfully established their presence in the eastern region. The workforce was provided by African slaves, however after the abolition of slavery, the Dutch and British brought large number of Southeast Asians to work. This created an unique colonization in the Americas, and still today these countries have a large number of Indian, Javanese and other Asiatic populations, giving also a great religious diversity (Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, African religions and Christian communities). The area only became independent with the decolonization process in mid-20th century with British and Dutch Guianas independence (respectively, modern Guyana and Suriname), while the French Guiana is still part of France (fun fact: the largest land border of modern France is with Brazil precisaly for this reason).
The new map:
1) added a vertical roll of land 1E from Magdalena river mouth to Bogotá (Colombia), moving everything east at the expenses of French Guiana. The latter area, represented by four titles since TJDowling proposal (which moved all Brazilian coast 1E to better represent it) and with identical size to Suriname, is considerable smaller in real world (85.000 sq km to 165.000 sq km). As such, French Guiana became represented by only two titles, Maracaibo lake became directly south of middle Hispaniola (like the real world counterpart) while Colombian core was enlarged, allowing also a better representation of Magdalena.
2) turned Maracaibo lake into a lagoon. Changed the rivers to better represent the Orinoco basin, the most important in the region. Also removed the eastern lake, which in real world is the
Guri Dam (built in the 1960s).
3) removed several marshes, so we can better represent the Venezuelan
Llanos and Amazon.
4) placed several jungle/rainforests titles in the Guianas. These are remote regions in Amazon rainforest, that are mostly untouched by human activities even nowadays.
Resources:
As an initial note, I should stress that I rearranged the resources in Colombia, putting them in the Magdalena basin (which was the area where most of the resources mentioned were cultivated in real world). The coal originally in Venezuela is also moved inside Colombia, as represents the major coal deposits in the north of the country.
Pre-colonial:
Pearls (1NW of Caracas): the Venezuelan Caribbean area was one of the most known pearl hunting area since colonial times.
Clam (1N of Caracas): fishing was important in the Caribbean since indigenous age and it is still an important sector of Venezuelan economy. I think that the clam is meant to represent its
exploitation, but it could be alternatively any other sea food resource.
Potatoes (1W of Caracas): another resource exploited since the indigenous era. Alternatively could be a corn, as nowadays corn production overshadow potatoes in Venezuela.
Tobacco (1E of Caracas): Venezuela, like Colombia, had its agricultural production focused in cash crops during colonial age. The main economic cycles in Venezuela before oil were Cocoa beans (in colonial times) and coffee (19th century). Tobacco was actually the second product in these periods, however I chose it to be represented because I felt that these resources were already abundant in Colombia while there was quite little number of tobacco in South America that didn’t really represented its production importance in the whole continent. Alternatively, we could also add both cocoa and coffee, possibly spawning near Caracas in colonial/post-independence era.
Crab (1NW of Georgetown): represents the important shrimp fishing in Guyana.
Whales (1NW of Cayenne): I didn’t found many information about whaling in the Guianas, but what I could find was that the Guianas coast are often visited by whales in mating season and nowadays there is some concerns about their protection from human activities (like the use of fishing nets and pollution). Either way, I did maintained the resource here.
Spice (1S of Cayenne): during the colonial times, spice was an important economic product of the Guianas. The one here represents the
Cayenne Pepper.
Colonial:
Cow (2S1W of Caracas): cattle was introduced by the Spanish and widely exploited in the llanos region.
Sugar (1E of Paramaribo): the main colonial product in the Guianas, since Dutch colonization, was sugar. In fact, apparently the Dutch ceded New Armsterdam (New York) for Britain because they considered the sugar plantations here more profitable than the fur commerce there.
Post-independence and modern:
4 Oil (1S of Maracaibo, 1SW and 1S2W of Caracas, Trinidad title): oil is, by far, the most important resource in modern Venezuela. The large number of resources are meant to represent its huge reserves, the largest in the world. I included another one in Trinidad because it also has substantial oil production.
Gold (1S of Georgetown): while initially the Spanish left the area unoccupied because they couldn’t find gold, nowadays the area is known for its mineral wealth. That’s why these resources only spawn in post-independence period. Guyana and Suriname have large gold mines in nowadays, which is their main exports and represented by this resource.
Aluminium (1SW of Paramaribo): the Guianas shield have large aluminium reserves and Suriname’s economy was quite dependent on bauxite mining during much of 20th century.
Finally, I will make some adjustments on the map and soon will include the map save here, so you all can better see and fully access the changes I've proposed. Also I'd like to thank you all for the suggestions and feedback, which greatly contributed for this final version of the South American proposal.
