Brazil–Venezuela border

Triple Point between Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana, Mount Roraima

The Brazil–Venezuela border is the limit that separates the territories of Brazil and Venezuela. It was delimited by the Treaty of Limits and River Navigation of May 5, 1859 and ratified by the Protocol of 1929.^[1] The geographical boundary begins at the triple point between Brazil-Colombia-Venezuela at Cucuy Rock and continues up the Maturacá channel to the Huá waterfall; it then follows a straight line to the top of a mountain called Cerro Cupi. It then follows the crest of the drainage divide between the Orinoco and Amazon river basins up to the Brazil-Guyana-Venezuela border tripoint on top of Mount Roraima, thus covering a total of 2,199 kilometres (of which 90 km are conventional boundaries and the other 2,109 km correspond to the watershed between the basins of the Amazon (Brazil) and Orinoco (Venezuela)) through the Imeri, Tapirapecó, Curupira and Urucuzeiro mountain ranges (Brazilian state of Amazonas), and the Parima, Auari, Urutanim and Pacaraima ranges (State of Roraima), in the Guiana Shield.^[2]

Because Venezuela claims the western portion of Guyana as Guayana Esequiba, from the Venezuelan point of view the border only ends at the headwaters of the Essequibo River in the Mapuera range, thus covering a total length of 2,850 km. However, the Venezuelan claims to the area are not officially recognized by Brazil, and Guyana exerts effective control over the disputed region.

The internationally recognized border is mostly located in remote and inaccessible wilderness areas, and it has only one road crossing, between the towns of Pacaraima (Brazil) and Santa Elena de Uairén (Venezuela), where the Brazilian BR-174 federal highway from Boa Vista and Manaus joins the Venezuelan Troncal 10 from Ciudad Guayana and Caracas.

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