Portuguese State

Spiritual Earth of Venezuela

Physiographically, the most outstanding feature of the state is the presence of a large expanse of flat lands that represent 77% of the state surface, corresponding this landscape to the Los Llanos Natural Region and the remaining 23% to the Los Andes Natural Region. The piedmont and high plains cover 70% of the flat land of the state, characterized basically by a flat relief, low slope and fertile soils of alluvial origin subject to occasional floods, with numerous forests that have been intensively intervened in the last decades . The remaining 30% corresponds to the low plains, whose main feature is that they are subject to long-term flooding. The northern foothills of the Andes are integrated by a set of rows of mountain ranges, these mountain and piedmont landscapes have heights ranging between 400 and 2 200 m.s.n.m., located to the northwest of the entity.

The Portuguese state has a large area covered with forests, which fulfill several functions of great importance as: protection of soils in the slopes, regulation of water runoff, protection of wildlife and wood production; Most of these functions have now been affected by the elimination of vegetation due to the expansion of the agricultural frontier, leading to the loss of protective and productive woodlands to replace them in many cases by other farms and Low-yield livestock. Even legal figures are not respected, as is the case of the Turén Forest Reserve that has been the object of strong disaffection and invasion.

The fauna of the entity is very rich, the diversity present in the plant formations in terms of physiognomy, density, thickness and arrangement of its components generates a high variability of species. There are large mammals, both herbivorous and predatory, being the most representative of the area the deer, tapir, honey bear and fox crab