  We examine the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition at large number of colors
($N_c$) within the framework of the Van Der Waals (VdW) model. We argue that
the VdW equation is appropriate at describing inter-nucleon forces, and discuss
how each parameter scales with $N_c$. We demonstrate that $N_c=3$ (our world)
is not large with respect to the other dimensionless scale relevant to baryonic
matter, the number of neighbors in a dense system $N_N$. Consequently, we show
that the liquid-gas phase transition looks dramatically different at $N_c \to
\infty$ with respect of our world: The critical point temperature becomes of
the order of $\lqcd$ rather than below it. The critical point density becomes
of the order of the baryonic density, rather than an order of magnitude below
it. These are precisely the characteristics usually associated with the
"Quarkyonic phase". We therefore conjecture that quarkyonic matter is simply
the large $N_c$ limit of the nuclear liquid, and the interplay between $N_c$
and $N_N$ is the reason why the nuclear liquid in our world is so different
from quarkyonic matter. We conclude by suggesting ways our conjecture can be
tested in future lattice measurements.
