Changes

The Venezuelan Boundary Dispute officially began in 1841, when the Venezuelan Government protested alleged British encroachment on Venezuelan territory. In 1814, Great Britain had acquired British Guiana (now Guyana) by treaty with the Netherlands. Because the treaty did not define a western boundary, the British commissioned Robert Schomburgk, a surveyor and naturalist, to delineate that boundary. His 1835 survey resulted in what came to be known as the Schomburgk Line, a border that effectively claimed an additional 30,000 square miles for Guiana.