Margarita today
In 1974 Venezuela made Margarita a duty-free port. Porlamar, a fishing settlement since 1536, became the island's commercial center — shops, malls, hotels, and an international airport grew after 1974. At its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, eight million visitors a year came to buy, do business, and use the beaches. Venezuela's economic collapse under Nicolás Maduro cut that by 90 percent between 2010 and 2020.
Since 2023, direct flights from Russia, Poland, and Turkey have brought new visitors back. In January 2023, Margarita received its first European cruise ship in 15 years. Venezuela recorded 2.8 million international tourists between January and October 2025, more than double the 1.25 million who arrived in all of 2023.
Video about Margarita
The Story of Margarita
Isla Margarita is the largest island in Venezuela, and once one of the richest places in the Americas. Its wealth came from pearls. The waters around it held some of the richest pearl beds Spain ever found, and before the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru, those pearls were the Crown's first great source of wealth from the New World.
The island lies in the Caribbean Sea off the country's northeast coast. With its two smaller neighbours, Coche and Cubagua, it makes up Nueva Esparta, the only island state in Venezuela. It is dry and sunny, with white-sand beaches and around 420,000 people, two halves joined by a sandy strip with the mangrove lagoon of La Restinga between them.
The pearl rush
The waters around Margarita held one of the densest beds of pearl oysters Spain ever found. Columbus sighted the islands in 1498. By 1500, fifty Spanish settlers were already on Cubagua, the small island next to Margarita, pulling oysters from beds 3 to 10 meters deep. The divers went down on a single breath, sometimes past 30 meters, carrying stones tied to their bodies to sink faster. Other indigenous groups were enslaved for the work. The Guaiquerí, the people of Margarita, held an unusual status — a royal decree freed them from tribute and forced labor, possibly because they collaborated with Spanish operations as skilled divers and navigators. From 1526, enslaved Africans began arriving on Cubagua. A 1558 royal decree banned indigenous divers entirely and replaced them with Africans only. Those men lived roughly one year after being forced into the water. By the 1620s, only 130 African divers remained in the whole area. By 1683, the harvest had practically stopped. The beds were empty.
Nueva Cádiz, the first city
Nueva Cádiz was the first Spanish city in all of South America. The pearl rush built it on Cubagua, the tiny island next to Margarita, and made it a city in 1528. The Spanish took the oysters faster than they could breed, and the beds were soon empty. By 1539 fewer than fifty people were left. A hurricane destroyed what remained in 1541. The ruins of Nueva Cádiz remain on Cubagua today, protected as a national monument of Venezuela.
Pearls drew pirates; Spain built forts
Pearl wealth drew pirates, so the Spanish ringed the coast with forts. The strongest is the Castillo de San Carlos de Borromeo at Pampatar, built in the 1600s to guard the bay. Others still stand at La Asunción, the island's old capital, and at Juan Griego. Margarita was worth defending: the Spanish treasure fleet stopped here to load pearls, the same fleet that called at Cartagena and Portobelo for silver before sailing home.