Current Time in Los Teques, Venezuela

Los Teques is the capital of Miranda state in northern Venezuela, set in the mountains of the coastal range about thirty kilometres south-west of Caracas. It lies at roughly eleven hundred metres above sea level in a landscape of steep green slopes and narrow valleys, which gives it a cool, misty climate and a reputation as a refuge from the heat of the lowlands. Houses climb the hillsides in tiers, and the road down to the capital winds through cloud forest and past reservoirs.

Around two hundred and seventy thousand people live in the city, part of a wider metropolitan population that spills into neighbouring municipalities. As the seat of the state government it has a large public administration, and much of its economy is built on services, commerce and light industry, including textiles, food processing, printing and construction materials. A great many residents commute daily to Caracas for work or study, so Los Teques functions in part as a mountain suburb of the national capital, while also serving as the market and administrative centre for the surrounding farming districts, which supply vegetables, flowers and coffee.

The name recalls the Teques, an indigenous people of the region whose leader Guaicaipuro led the resistance to Spanish settlement in the sixteenth century and became a national symbol of that struggle. The colonial town developed slowly, formally founded in 1777 around a parish dedicated to San Felipe Neri, and remained a modest highland village for much of its history. Its transformation began with the railway built from Caracas at the end of the nineteenth century, which made the mountain air accessible to city families and encouraged the building of country houses. Los Teques was made capital of Miranda state in 1927, and the second half of the twentieth century brought rapid growth as the population of the capital region expanded outwards.

The centre keeps a modest colonial core around the main square, the cathedral and the old government buildings, with the Casa de la Cultura and a regional museum recording local history and the memory of Guaicaipuro, whose monument overlooks the city. The surrounding mountains are the real attraction: Macarao National Park protects an extensive area of cloud forest with rivers, waterfalls and trails within sight of the city, while the road towards San Antonio de los Altos and the Colonia Tovar, a village founded by German settlers in 1843 where the architecture, food and language of the Black Forest survived for generations, makes a popular excursion.

Local life centres on family, church, baseball and the cooler climate that allows for strawberries, peaches and hot chocolate rarely associated with the Caribbean. Several universities and technical institutes have campuses here, including branches of national institutions, and the schools and hospitals of the capital are close by. The Los Teques metro, opened in 2006 and later extended, connects directly to the Caracas underground network, supplemented by buses, a cable-hauled line serving hillside neighbourhoods and the mountain highway.

Los Teques is important as the administrative capital of Miranda state and as a cool highland city at the doorstep of Caracas.