page_title: Guayana Esequiba
section_title: Schomburgk Line
hierarchical_section_title: Guayana Esequiba / History / 19th century / Schomburgk Line
context_page_description: Guayana Esequiba is a disputed territory of 159,500 km² west of the Essequibo River that is administered and controlled by Guyana but claimed by Venezuela. The boundary dispute was inherited from the colonial powers and is complicated by the independence of Guyana from the United Kingdom in 1966.
  The status of the territory is subject to the Geneva Agreement, which was signed by the United Kingdom, Venezuela and British Guiana on 17 February 1966. This treaty stipulates that the parties will agree to find a practical, peaceful and satisfactory solution to the dispute. Despite the treaty, Venezuela has used diplomatic, economic and military actions against Guyana, such as threatening economic sanctions against nations seeking to assist Guyana developing the territory. Loss of the resource-rich area, which constitutes about two-thirds of Guyana's territory, would do irreversible damage to the economic development of Guyana.
  The territory is divided by Guyana into six administrative regions: Barima-Waini, Cuyuni-Mazaruni, Pomeroon-Supenaam, Potaro-Siparuni, Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo and Essequibo Islands-West Demerara.
context_section_description: Under the aegis of the Royal Geographical Society, the German-born explorer and naturalist Robert Hermann Schomburgk conducted botanical and geographical exploration of British Guiana in 1835. This resulted in a sketch of the territory with a line marking what he believed to be the western boundary claimed by the Dutch. As a result of this, he was commissioned in 1840 by the British government to survey Guiana's boundaries. This survey resulted in what came to be known as the "Schomburgk Line". The Line gave British Guiana control of the mouth of the Orinoco River. According to Schomburgk, it did not contain all the area that Britain might legitimately claim.
  There was no official dispute between Britain and Venezuela until the Line was created. Venezuela disputed Schomburgk's placing of border markers at the Orinoco river, and in 1844 claimed all of Guiana west of the Essequibo River. Also in 1844, a British proposal to Venezuela to modify the border to give Venezuela full control of the Orinoco river mouth and adjacent territory was ignored. In 1850 both Britain and Venezuela reached an agreement whereby they accepted not to colonize the disputed territory, although where this territory began and ended was not established. 
  Schomburgk's initial sketch, which had been published in 1840, was the only version of the "Schomburgk Line" published until 1886, which led to later accusations by US President Grover Cleveland that the line had been extended "in some mysterious way".
caption: 1896 map detailing British Guiana and the disputes surrounding the Schomburgk Line
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