Henri Pittier National Park is the oldest national park in Venezuela, originally created in 1937 under the name of Rancho Grande by decree of President Eleazar López Contreras. The park was renamed in 1953 with the name of Henri Pittier, a distinguished Swiss geographer, botanist and ethnologist, who arrived in Venezuela in 1917, classified more than 30,000 plants in the country and devoted many years studying the flora and fauna in the park.