Paz de Río is a town and municipality in the Valderrama Province, part of the Colombian

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

of Boyacá. The urban centre of Paz de Río, situated on the

Altiplano Cundiboyacense The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alt ...

, is located at an elevation of , and the elevation within the municipality ranges from to . The municipality borders Sativanorte and

Sativasur Sativasur is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Northern Boyacá Province. It is approximately 132 km from Tunja, the capital of the department. Sativasur borders the municipalities S ...

in the north,

Betéitiva Betéitiva () a town and municipality in the Valderrama Province, part of the Colombian department of Boyacá. The urban centre of Betétiva is situated at from the capital Bogotá, from the department capital Tunja and from Sogamoso. The m ...

and

Tasco Tasco (also known as Tasco Worldwide) sells consumer telescopes. Tasco mainly imports telescopes for amateur astronomers but has expanded into other optical products, such as spotting scopes, microscopes, binoculars, telescopic sights, and othe ...

in the south, Sativasur and Socha in the east and Belén and Tutazá in the west.Official website Paz de Río
/ref>

History

In the times before the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predec ...

, Paz de Río was inhabited by the

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 ...

. The original name of the village, now the name of a ''vereda'', Chitagoto is taken from ''

cacique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a ...

'' Chitagoto, who was loyal to the

Tundama Tundama or Saymoso (15th century - Duitama, late December 1539) was a ''cacique'' of the Muisca Confederation, a loose confederation of different rulers of the Muisca who inhabited the central highlands (Altiplano Cundiboyacense) of the Colo ...

.Etymology Chitagoto
/ref> Modern Paz de Río was not founded until July 20, 1935 by Marco Antonio Mejía Gómez.

Economy

The main economical activity of Paz de Río is

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 ...

, predominantly

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 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. Other products are

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn ( North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. ...

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeolog ...

and

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paz De Rio Municipalities of Boyacá Department Populated places established in 1935 Muisca Confederation