The Sifontes Municipality is one of the 11

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

(

municipio ' (, ) and ' () are country subdivisions in Italy and several Hispanophone and Lusophone nations, respectively. They are often translated as "municipality". In the English language, a municipality often is defined as relating to a single city or t ...

s) that makes up the

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 ...

n state of Bolívar and, according to the 2011 census by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, the municipality has a population of 50,082. The town of

Tumeremo Tumeremo is a town in the state of Bolívar in eastern Venezuela. It is the shire town of the Sifontes Municipality. History Its first settlers were Guayan Indians and Kamaracotos, coming from the savanna of the Divina Pastora and Tupuquen l ...

was the

shire town A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

of the Sifontes Municipality.http://www.ine.gob.ve/secciones/division/Bolivar.zip

Demographics

The Sifontes Municipality, according to a 2007 population estimate by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, has a population of 40,042 (up from 34,277 in 2000). This amounts to 2.6% of the state's population. The municipality's population density is .

Government

The mayor of the Sifontes Municipality is Carlos Chancellor, elected on December 8, 2013, with 50,23% of the vote. He replaced Marlene Vargas shortly after the elections. The municipality is divided into two (three if the Capital Tumeremo section is counted)

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

es; Dalla Costa and San Isidro.

History

Its first settlers were Guayan Indians and Kamaracotos, coming from the savanna of the Divina Pastora and Tupuquen located to the left margin of the river Yuruari. They fed on hunting, fishing and agriculture. Tumeremo was founded on January 26,

1788 Events January–March * January 1 – The first edition of ''The Times'', previously ''The Daily Universal Register'', is published in London. * January 2 – Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fourth U.S ...

under the name of "Mission of Our Lady of Bethlehem of Tumeremo" by the Capuchin monks of Catalonia, among them: Fray Mariano de Perafita, Fray Bonaventura de Carrocera and Fray Tomas de Santa Eugenia. Tumeremo means "Painted Snake", in the dialect of the first Indians who inhabited these lands. During the Campaign of Guayana, General

Manuel Piar Manuel Carlos María Francisco Piar Gómez (April 28, 1774 – October 16, 1817) was General-in-Chief of the army fighting Spain during the Venezuelan War of Independence. Heritage and early life The son of Fernando Alonso Piar y Lottyn, a Span ...

fights against the realists to seize the missions of the kingdom of Spain. After releasing Tumeremo, the Spanish survivors were imprisoned and sentenced to death. From there, the city was a strategic site and barracks for the patriot soldiers commanded by Simón Bolívar. From 1830 many indigenous and other populations began to emerge around Tumeremo. General Domingo Antonio Sifontes

1894 Events January–March * January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire. * January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United S ...

a group of British settlers who came from the

British Guyana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies, which resides on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first European to encounter Guiana was S ...

tried to take part of the present municipal territory, before which General Domingo Antonio Sifontes founded in March 2nd of the same year the population of

El Dorado El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...

in which it established a military position, for Then expel the invaders from the area; Since then General Sifontes became a local hero in recognition of the defense of Venezuelan sovereignty. The name of the municipality takes its name in honor to the general Antonio Domingo Sifontes, but the jurisdiction abbreviated its name li In 2013, 60% of all malaria cases in Venezuela occurred in Sifontes.

Fauna, flora and vegetation

The municipality of Sifontes lies in the

Guianan Highlands moist forests The Guayanan Highlands moist forests (NT0124) is an ecoregion in the south of Venezuela and the north of Brazil and in Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. It is in the Amazon biome. It encompasses an upland region with diverse fauna and flora, which ...

ecoregion, and the major habitat type is

tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discont ...

.''The Nature Conservancy'' (2009) TNC terrestrial ecoregions

Based on: Olson, D. M. and E. Dinerstein. 2002. The Global 200: Priority ecoregions for global conservation. (PDF file) Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 89:125-126. Common birds include the Orange-winged Parrot ('' Amazona amazonica''), Painted Parakeet (''

Pyrrhura picta The painted parakeet (''Pyrrhura picta''), more commonly known as the painted conure in aviculture, is a species of bird in the family Psittacidae, the true parrots. Its taxonomy is highly complex, and has undergone significant changes in recent ...

''), White Bellbird ('' Procnias alba''), Helmeted Pygmy-Tyrant ('' Lophotriccus galeatus''), Fiery-shouldered Parakeet ('' Pyrrhura egregia''), Blue-headed Parrot ('' Pionus menstruus''). At least 58 species of

dung beetles Dung beetles are beetles that feed on feces. Some species of dung beetles can bury dung 250 times their own mass in one night. Many dung beetles, known as ''rollers'', roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or breeding cha ...

and 73 of

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

have been reported in systematic surveys. Among the most common species of dung beetles are '' Canthon triangularis'', '' Canthon variabilis'', '' Deltochilum guildingii'', '' Eurysternus caribaeus'', '' Onthophagus rubrescens'', '' Sylvicanthon bridarollii'', and the emblematic '' Oxysternon festivum''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sifontes Municipality Municipalities of Bolívar (state)

Demographics

Government

History

Fauna, flora and vegetation

See also

References