Las Mercedes is the largest district for shopping and leisure in Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

. It is located at the Baruta Municipality

Baruta Municipality

Baruta Municipality belongs politically to the Greater Caracas Municipality in Venezuela. It is located geographically in the South-East section of the city. Its western limit is the Los Chaguaramos neighborhood and limits to the east with the Colinas de Los Ruices neighborhood, in the Sucre...

, Caracas

Caracas

Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...

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It contains discos and pubs. It contains clothing and fashion stores, art galleries, and restaurants, that include diverse gastronomical specialties from local food such as areperas to foreign and international food.

A series of cultural activities occurs at the Plaza Alfredo Sadel and the Rio de Janeiro avenue that is recreation for the community, emphasizing the Dia de la Raza  that is celebrated on October 12. This holiday emphasizes the friendship between all countries. There is an exhibition of iconographies of all the customs and traditions of the different cultures that coexist in Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

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History

Las Mercedes was a residential neighborhood, made for the expansion of Caracas, until the 1970s where the district had definitively shifted from residential to almost purely commercial. In 1955 the first mall of Caracas was inaugurated in Las Mercedes, “Las Mercedes Mall” or “Cada de Las Mercedes”, when the urbanism of the zone begun. In the 1970s and 1980s, shopping centers were constructed, like the Paseo Las Mercedes which has many stores, many restaurants, and government organizations.

In the 21st century, new malls have included the Tolón Mall. In 2006 the Baruta mayor began remodeling the Plaza Alfredo Sadel and an upgrade to the Las Mercedes drainage. There are plans for a future expansion of line 4 of the Caracas Metro

Caracas Metro

The Caracas Metro is a mass rapid transit system serving Caracas, Venezuela. It is constructed and operated by Compañía Anónima Metro de Caracas, a government-owned company that was founded in 1977 by José González-Lander who headed the project for more than thirty years since the early planning...

which is intended to connect the district with two stations, Las Mercedes and Tamanaco, with Plaza Venezuela and Parque del Este of line 1. This expansion will help reduce traffic jams.