Pomasqui Valley is a valley on the northern outskirts of

Quito Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, P ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

. It is located on the

equator The equator is the circle of latitude that divides Earth into the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Southern Hemispheres of Earth, hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, about in circumferen ...

, the so-called "Mitad del Mundo" ("Middle of the World"), at an altitude of around above sea level. Hot and semi-arid, it is formed by a river tributary. The valley contains the Cerro de Catequilla, which contains the pre-Columbian astronomical observatory, Catequilla. The village of Pomasqui itself lies roughly from the equator. The

Monjas River Monjas River ("Rio Monjas"; translation: Nun River) is located in Pichincha Province, Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and ...

flows nearby and the valley is an important centre for viniculture in Ecuador, with vineyards. The economy features vegetable and fruit production. To the northwest is the Pululahua Geobotanical Reserve.

History

The valley played an important role in military conflict as the Spanish army under Benalcazar invaded in 1534.

Atahualpa Atahualpa (), also Atawallpa or Ataw Wallpa ( Quechua) ( 150226 July 1533), was the last effective Inca emperor, reigning from April 1532 until his capture and execution in July of the following year, as part of the Spanish conquest of the In ...

leaders such as Rumiñahui and

Quizquiz ''QuizQuiz'' (), also known as ''Quiz Quiz'', was a massively multiplayer online (MMO) quiz video game created by Nexon which used a super deformed type anime graphical style to portray the players and the few environments or non-player chara ...

led organized attacks against the invading Spanish, and some 4000 locals were slaughtered by them here for giving in to the invaders.

History

References

Further reading