At the end of the fifteenth century AD, the lands surrounding the Caribbean Sea were densely populated with people who were frequently organized into rank societies or chiefdoms of varying degrees of complexity. The cultural variety which characterized the circum-Caribbean as a whole was mirrored on a smaller scale in the cultural complexities of constituent regions. The highest levels of political development and regional influence were attained by a cluster of polities, including those of the Muisca or Chibcha, situated in highland basins of the Cordillera Oriental. The Cordillera de Merida or Venezuelan Andes stretches north-east along the southern end of the lake and then, under the name of the Cordillera de la Costa, runs parallel to the Caribbean coast of northern Venezuela. The richness and diversity of natural resources and the circumscribing factors inherent in rugged topography influenced the development of rank societies in the mountainous islands of the Greater Antilles, as they did elsewhere in the circum-Caribbean.