Piedra del Cocuy (''from

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

: Cocuy Rock''; ''

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: Pedra do Cucuí'') is a natural monument in

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

, located near the triple border of the country with

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

in the limits of the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

and the Orinoco Basins. Piedra del Cocuy is an

inselberg An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain. In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...

made of

granitic rock A granitoid is a generic term for a diverse category of coarse-grained igneous rocks that consist predominantly of quartz, plagioclase, and alkali feldspar. Granitoids range from plagioclase-rich tonalites to alkali-rich syenites and from quartz- ...

, its peak stands at c. 450 m a.s.l.

Triple border

Administratively Piedra del Cocuy is located in the municipality of Río Negro in the Amazonas State in Venezuela. The triple border is situated 2 km to the west on the island of San José in the

Rio Negro (Amazon) The Rio Negro ( pt, Rio Negro, br ; es, Río Negro} "''Black River''"), or Guainía as it is known in its upper part, is the largest left tributary of the Amazon River (accounting for about 14% of the water in the Amazon basin), the largest bl ...

. The adjacent municipalities from the Colombian and the Brazilian side are

Inírida, Guainía Inírida (), formerly Puerto Inírida, is the capital city, and a municipality, of the department of Guainía in Colombia. It was established in 1963 on the site of the small village of Obando, at the time in the municipality of San Felipe. Th ...

and

São Gabriel da Cachoeira São Gabriel da Cachoeira (''Saint Gabriel of the Waterfall'') is a municipality located on the northern shore of the Rio Negro River, in the region of Cabeça do Cachorro, Amazonas state, Brazil. Location São Gabriel da Cachoeira is the thir ...

in the Amazonas State respectively.

Border Towns

La Guadalupe La Guadalupe () is a village and municipality in the Guainía Department, Colombia. La Guadalupe borders the corregimiento ''Corregimiento'' (; ca, Corregiment, ) is a Spanish term used for country subdivisions for royal administrative purpos ...

, on the Colombian side and the western banks of the Rio Negro with a population of around 300 people, mostly

Amerindians The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Ame ...

. San Simón del Cocuy, on the Venezuelan side and Eastern banks of the Rio Negro. Cucuí, in Brazil. It is actually a military post connected by road to the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira.

Transport

The Rio Negro is the most important

waterway A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...

. There is a road (

BR-307 BR-307 is a Brazilian federal highway in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira São Gabriel da Cachoeira (''Saint Gabriel of the Waterfall'') is a municipality located on the northern shore of the Rio Negro River, in the region of Cabe� ...

) that connects the border post of Cucuí in the Brazilian side with the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira.

Economy

The region has been inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous groups including

Baniwa Baniwa (also known with local variants as Baniva, Baniua, Curipaco, Vaniva, Walimanai, Wakuenai) are indigenous South Americans, who speak the Baniwa language belonging to the Maipurean (Arawak) language family. They live in the Amazon Region, ...

, Karupaka (Kurrin), Karry (Karutama) who belong to the language family

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

. The main economic activity has been the traditional exploitation of gold which has generated conflicts between the indigenous and miners (known as

garimpeiros Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface ...

References

Inselbergs of South America Landforms of Venezuela Natural monuments of Venezuela {{AmazonasVE-geo-stub