Ramiriquí is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Márquez Province. Ramiriquí borders the department capital

Tunja Tunja () is a city on the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes, in the region known as the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, 130 km northeast of Bogotá. In 2018 it had a population of 172,548 inhabitants. It is the capital of Boyacá department ...

in the north, in the south Chinavita and Zetaquirá, in the east Rondón and Ciénaga and in the west Chivatá, Tibaná and Jenesano.Official website Ramiriquí
- accessed 02-05-2016

Etymology

Ramiriquí was named after the last ''cacique''; Ramirique. In the

Chibcha language Chibcha, Mosca, Muisca, Muysca (*/ˈmɨska/), or Muysca de Bogotá, was a language spoken by the Muisca people of the Muisca Confederation, one of the many indigenous cultures of the Americas. The Muisca inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense ...

of the Muisca ''Ramirraquí'' means "white earth". An alternative etymology is ''Ca-mi-quiquí'' which means "our strength over the grasslands".Etymology Ramiriquí
- accessed 02-05-2016

History

The area of Ramiriquí 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 ...

before the arrival of the

Spanish conquistadors 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, O ...

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 ...

in the 1530s. The northern

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 ...

was ruled from nearby Hunza, present-day Tunja, after the

mythological Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

and brutal ''

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 ...

'' Goranchacha moved the capital there from Ramiriquí. The first ruler of Hunza was

Hunzahúa Hunzahúa was the first ''zaque''; ruler of the northern Muisca with capital Hunza, named after him. His contemporary ''zipa'' of the southern Muisca was Meicuchuca. Biography Hunzahúa, heir of Idacansás, was a ''cacique'' in the sacred vall ...

after whom the city was named. Second-last

ruler A ruler, sometimes called a rule, line gauge, or scale, is a device used in geometry and technical drawing, as well as the engineering and construction industries, to measure distances or draw straight lines. Variants Rulers have long ...

Quemuenchatocha Quemuenchatocha or Quimuinchateca (named in the earliest sources Eucaneme) ( Hunza, 1472– Ramiriquí, 1538) was the second-last '' hoa'' of Hunza, currently known as Tunja, as of 1490. He was the ruler of the northern Muisca when the Spanish c ...

died in Ramiriquí, after he was beaten by Spanish 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 ...

. The modern town was founded on December 21, 1541 by Spanish

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the o ...

Pedro Durán. Within the boundaries of Ramiriquí

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s have been found.Petroglyphs in Ramiriquí
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Economy

Main economical activities in Ramiriquí are

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 ...

(

uchuva ''Physalis peruviana'' is a species of plant in the nightshade family (Solanaceae) native to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. It is commonly known as Cape gooseberry, goldenberry or ground cherry, as poha in Hawaii, and as Harankash in Egypt, while ...

, tree tomatoes,

cucumber Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.beans A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes t ...

blackberries The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

and

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. ...

), fishing and

crafts A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...

Born in Ramiriqui

* Jose Ignacio de Marquez, first civil Colombian president * José Patrocinio Jiménez, former professional cyclist *

Mauricio Soler Juan Mauricio Soler Hernández (born January 14, 1983 in Ramiriquí, Boyacá) is a Colombian former professional road bicycle racer, who last rode for UCI ProTour team . He competed in the Tour de France for the first time in 2007, winning s ...

, former international cyclist

Gallery

File:Ramiriqui 05.JPG, Central square File:Ramiriqui 02.JPG, Central square File:Ramiriqui 01.JPG, Central square File:Ramiriqui 03.JPG, Central square and church File:Ramiriqui 04.JPG, Farmer monument File:Artesanias de Ramiriquí.jpg, Crafts in Ramiriquí

References

External links

Fly over Ramiriquí location using GoogleMaps'API
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ramiriqui Municipalities of Boyacá Department Populated places established in 1541 1541 establishments in the Spanish Empire Muisca Confederation Muysccubun