Italian Venezuelans
Italian Venezuelans (Italian: italo-venezuelani; Spanish: ítalo-venezolanos) are Venezuelan-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Venezuela during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Venezuela. Italians were among the largest groups of European immigrants to settle in the country. Approximately 5 million Venezuelans have some degree of Italian ancestry, corresponding to about 16% of the total population of Venezuela, while there were around 30,000 Italian citizens in Venezuela.
Juan Germán Roscio was a Venezuelan lawyer and politician of Italian ancestry who was the main editor of the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence, and the chief architect of the Venezuelan Constitution of 1811 | |
| Total population | |
| c. 30,000 (by birth) c. 5,000,000 (by ancestry, about 16% of the total Venezuelan population) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Greater Caracas, Valencia, Maracay, Barquisimeto, Maracaibo, Barcelona-Puerto La Cruz, Margarita Island, Ciudad Guayana, Acarigua-Araure and Mérida | |
| Languages | |
| Venezuelan Spanish · Italian and Italian dialects | |
| Religion | |
| Roman Catholic | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Italians, Italian Americans, Italian Argentines, Italian Bolivians, Italian Brazilians, Italian Canadians, Italian Chileans, Italian Colombian, Italian Costa Ricans, Italian Cubans, Italian Dominicans, Italian Ecuadorians, Italian Guatemalans, Italian Haitians, Italian Hondurans, Italian Mexicans, Italian Panamanians, Italian Paraguayans, Italian Peruvians, Italian Puerto Ricans, Italian Salvadorans, Italian Uruguayans |
Italians began arriving in Venezuela in massive numbers in the last half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. Yet Italians began to transmit their cultural heritage, giving and receiving demonstrations of social empathy, which contributed to their integration and to the huge flows into Venezuela in 1947 and in 1948.
The massive presence of travelers, explorers, missionaries, and other peninsular and insular Italian immigrants over the course of almost 500 years made Venezuela acquire a Latin vocation instead of a Hispanic one. Italians also influenced the Venezuelan accent, given its slight sing-songy intonation. Similarly, beyond the ethnic contribution, Italian culture has had a significant impact in Venezuela, a country which is the second in the world with the highest consumption of pasta per capita after Italy.