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Located in the north of South America, with a long Caribbean coastline, Venezuela has a vast central plain (the Llanos) drained by the Orinoco, while the Guiana Highlands dominate the southwest of the country. A Spanish colony until 1811, Venezuela was lauded as Latin America's most stable democracy until its recent political upheavals. Though the country has some of the largest known oil deposits outside the Middle East, much of Venezuela's population still lives in shanty-town squalor.