Chipaque is a municipality and town in the Eastern Province of the department of Cundinamarca,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...

. The municipality of is located at an altitude of in the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. The club is a founding member of the competition (1992) and has produced several players for the Australian Football Leag ...

of the Colombian

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

with its westernmost part situated in the Eastern Hills of

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

. The Colombian capital is west of Chipaque. Chipaque borders Bogotá's southern locality Usme in the west. To the east, Chipaque borders Cáqueza, in the south

Une Une is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Eastern Province, part of the department of Cundinamarca. The urban centre is located at an altitude of at a distance of from the capital Bogotá. The municipality borders Chipaque in the nort ...

and in the north

Ubaque Ubaque is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Eastern Province of the department of Cundinamarca. Ubaque borders the municipalities Choachí in the north, Fómeque in the east, Cáqueza and Chipaque in the south and in the west is the ...

. The average temperature is .Official website Chipaque
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Etymology

The name Chipaque is derived from the word ''Chipapabacue'', Muysccubun for "Forest of our ancestors".

Symbols

Flag The flag consists of two bands of the same size. One of them yellow and the other green. Yellow symbolizes wealth. Green symbolizes hope and also represents its rustic and fertile topography. A white triangle emerges from the side of the pole and its vertices converge at the center where the two bands meet. Seal Emblem framed by the sides with the flags of Colombia and Cundinamarca. Its crossed flagpoles wear a yellow ribbon with the name of the municipality "Chipaque" written on it. In the lower part there is a typical landscape of the region and the sun.

Geology

The

Chipaque Formation The Chipaque Formation ( es, Formación Chipaque, K2cp, Kc) is a geological formation of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The formation is also described as Gachetá Formation, named after Gachetá, in the area ...

, consisting of

organic shale Organic may refer to: * Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity * Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ Chemistry * Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...

s and sandstone beds, is named after Chipaque. The Páramo de Cruz Verde is located in the northern part of the municipality.

History

Before the

Spanish conquest of the Muisca The Spanish conquest of the Muisca took place from 1537 to 1540. The Muisca were the inhabitants of the central Andean highlands of Colombia before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. They were organised in a loose confederation of diff ...

, Chipaque was inhabited by the indigenous Muisca, organised in their loose

Muisca Confederation The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers (''zaques'', ''zipas'', ''iraca'', and ''tundama'') in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of northern South America. T ...

. Chipaque was part of the ''

cacicazgo ''Cacicazgo'' is a phonetic Spanish transliteration (or a derivative) of the Taíno word for the lands ruled by a ''cacique''. The Spanish colonial system recognized indigenous elites as nobles in Mexico and Peru, and other areas. Nobles could en ...

'' of Ubaque. During the conquest, main

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada y Rivera, also spelled as Ximénez and De Quezada, (;1496 16 February 1579) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in northern South America, territories currently known as Colombia. He explored the territory named ...

sent

Juan Tafur Juan Tafur (1500, Córdoba, Andalusia, Castile - ?, ?) was a Spanish conquistador who participated in the Spanish conquest of the Muisca people. He was a cousin of fellow conquistadors Martín Yañéz Tafur, Hernán Venegas Carrillo and Pedro ...

eastward. In 1538, he established the first church in Chipaque. Modern Chipaque was founded on October 2, 1600, by Luis Enríquez.

Economy

Main activities of Chipaque are

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to ani ...

farming and

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...

, with

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Uni ...

es (45%) and

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...

s (25%) as most important products.

Gallery

References

{{Municipalities cundinamarca department Municipalities of Cundinamarca Department Populated places established in 1600 1600 establishments in the Spanish Empire Muisca Confederation Muysccubun