page_title: Mérida (state)
section_title: Spanish Colonization
hierarchical_section_title: Mérida (state) / History / Spanish Colonization
caption_attribution_description: Español: Mérida.
context_page_description: The State of Mérida commonly known simply as Mérida', IPA: ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. The state capital is Mérida, in the Libertador Municipality.
  Located in the Western Andean Region, Mérida State covers a total surface area of 11,300 square kilometres, making it the fifteenth-largest in Venezuela. In 2011, had a census population of 828,592, the fourteenth most populous.
context_section_description: In 1558 Juan Rodríguez Suárez founded the city of Mérida, in the name of the Corregimiento de Tunja, in honor of his native city of Mérida in Spain. In December 1607 Merida was separated from the Corregimiento de Tunja and united with the government of La Grita forming the corregimiento de Merida y La Grita. On November 3, 1622 it became the governorship of Merida with Juan Pacheco Maldonado as governor.
  In 1676 Maracaibo (separated from the province of Venezuela) and Mérida-La Grita are united in a governorship called Province of Mérida del Espíritu Santo de Maracaibo (capital in Mérida) under the Audiencia of Bogota and then known as "province of Maracaibo" since 1678 that city becomes the capital of the governorship.
  By 1677 the Pirate Michel de Grandmont sacked Trujillo, this attack led Governor Jorge de Madureira to change the capital of the province to the city of Maracaibo in 1678, to organize a more effective defense of the territory.
  The territory of the province of Merida depended on the Viceroyalty of New Granada until 1777, when the Captaincy General of Venezuela was created.
caption: Colonial Hacienda of La Victoria
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