Why it looks like this

Valencia sits in a fertile basin west of Caracas, between the Cordillera de la Costa and Lake Valencia, one of South America's largest natural lakes. Founded in 1555, it kept the classic Spanish checkerboard at its core and briefly served as the national capital in the 1800s.

The 20th century made it Venezuela's Detroit: assembly plants and factories lined the industrial zones south of the centre, drawing the country's manufacturing workforce. The map shows a colonial grid grown into an industrial one across the flat basin floor.