city, Guárico estado (state), central Venezuela. It lies along the Guárico River, 110 miles (180 km) south-southwest of Caracas, on a piedmont plain between the mountains and the Llanos (plains). Founded in 1695 by Capuchin missionaries, it lacked permanence until a Spanish settlement took hold in 1727. Because of the remote location, colonial convicts allegedly were allowed to choose between imprisonment in colonial forts or dungeons or banishment to Calabozo. The city gained prominence in the 1950s as the headquarters of the Guárico River Reclamation Project, which is concerned with irrigation, flood control, and the cattle industry. The city has benefited from the development of a vast rice-producing region and from the construction of modern transport facilities, which link it to San Fernando de Apure, the livestock centre to the south, and to San Juan de los Morros to the north. Pop. (2001) 102,000.