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

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 largest ...

. The Colombian capital is west of Chipaque. Chipaque borders Bogotá's southern locality

Usme Usme is the 5th locality of the Capital District of Bogotá, capital city of Colombia. Usme is located in the south of Bogotá, bordering to the north the localities of San Cristóbal, Rafael Uribe Uribe and Tunjuelito, to the west the locali ...

in the west. To the east, Chipaque borders Cáqueza, in the south Une and in the north Ubaque. 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, consisting of organic shales 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 The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan l ...

, 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 Andes, Andean highlands of present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, Spanish ...

. 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 A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indig ...

'' of Ubaque. During the conquest, main conquistador

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 nam ...

sent Juan Tafur 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 anima ...

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 peop ...

, 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 Un ...

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 oni ...

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