Parishes of Venezuela

Venezuela is a federal state that is divided into states, and these into autonomous municipalities and these in turn into parishes. In total, the country has 1,136 parishes that make up the 335 municipalities (integrated of the 23 states and the Capital District).

There are a total of 1,136 parishes in Venezuela, the state with the most parishes is Zulia with 110 and the one with the fewest parishes is La Guaira State with 11. The municipality with the most parishes in the Capital District is the Libertador Municipality with 22 parishes; the municipality with the most parishes among the states is the Maracaibo Municipality of the state of Zulia with 18. The Gran Sabana parish, located in the Gran Sabana municipality in the state of Bolívar with 29,305 km² is considered the largest in the country, in contrast, the Santa Teresa parish belonging to the Libertador municipality of the Capital District is the smallest with 0.8 km² equivalent to 80 hectares.

In Venezuela parishes are the lowest-ranking political-territorial unit, where the municipalities are divided, the administrative division is directed by a prefect (appointed by the municipal mayor), in addition the parish is constitutionally composed of a parish board. Since the elections of 1992 the citizens directly elected the representatives of the parish boards, in 2005 for the first time elections were held to elect the parish boards separately from those of governor and mayor, since that date no more parish elections have been held with the intention of replacing them with the communal parish boards.