Tenza () is a town and municipality in the subregion of the

Eastern Boyacá Province The Eastern Boyacá Province is a province of the Colombian Department of Boyacá. The province is formed by 8 municipalities. The Tenza Valley is located in the Eastern Boyacá Province. The province hosts the eastern belt containing rich emera ...

of the

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

n department Boyacá. Tenza borders

La Capilla La Capilla is a town and municipality in the Eastern Boyacá Province, part of the Colombian department of Boyacá. The urban centre is situated at an altitude of in the Tenza Valley. Borders * North with Úmbita and Pachavita * South w ...

and Pachavita in the north, in the east the department of Cundinamarca, in the south with

Sutatenza Sutatenza () is a town and municipality in the Eastern Boyacá Province of the department of Boyacá, Colombia. It is located from the Colombian capital Bogotá and from the department capital Tunja. Sutatenza borders Somondoco, Guateque, Ten ...

and in the east with

Garagoa Garagoa () is a town and municipality in Colombia, located in the Boyacá Department. It covers an area of 191.75 km2 and the urban centre is located at an altitude of above sea level. Parts of the municipality reach altitudes of . It is the ...

. The altitude of the municipality in the

Tenza Valley The Tenza Valley (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Valle de Tenza'') is an intermontane valley in the Cordillera Oriental (Colombia), Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The valley stretches over the southeastern part of the departments of Colomb ...

ranges from to .Official website Tenza
- accessed 07-05-2016

History

Tenza used to be inhabited by the

Muisca The Muisca (also called the Chibcha) are indigenous peoples in Colombia and were a Pre-Columbian culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Muisca spe ...

before the arrival of the Spanish

conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

es led by

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada y Rivera, also spelled as Ximénez and De Quezada, (; 1509 – 16 February 1579) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in northern South America, territories currently known as Colombia. He explored the territory n ...

who was looking for

emerald Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium.Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Jr., and Kammerling, Robert C. (1991). ''Gemology'', John Wiley & Sons, New York ...

s. The village was ruled by the ''

cacique A cacique, sometimes spelled as cazique (; ; feminine form: ), was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, who were the Indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles at the time of European cont ...

'' of Cora, loyal to the ''

zaque When the Spanish arrived in the central Colombian highlands, the region was organized into the Muisca Confederation, which had two rulers; the ''Zipa'' was the ruler of the southern part and based in Muyquytá. The ''Zaque'' was the ruler of the ...

'' of Hunza. Modern Tenza was founded during the

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

by the Jiménez de Quesada, on June 24, Saint John's day, 1537. Tenza used to be called ''Tenazuca'', which in the

Chibcha language Chibcha, Mosca, Muisca, Muysca (*/ˈmɨska/ * �mʷɨska, or Muysca de Bogotá is a language spoken by the Muisca people, one of the many indigenous cultures of the Americas. The Muisca inhabit the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of what today is th ...

of the Muisca means "going down at night".Etymology Tenza
- accessed 07-05-2016

Economy

Livestock Livestock are the Domestication, domesticated animals that are raised in an Agriculture, agricultural setting to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, Egg as food, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The t ...

farming is the most important activity. The

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

of Tenza is relatively modest with

bean A bean is the seed of some plants in the legume family (Fabaceae) used as a vegetable for human consumption or animal feed. The seeds are often preserved through drying (a ''pulse''), but fresh beans are also sold. Dried beans are traditi ...

pea Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum' ...

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

yuca ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava, manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although a perennia ...

arracacha ''Arracacia xanthorrhiza'' is a root vegetable that originates in the Andes, whose starchy taproot is a popular food item across South America where it is a major commercial crop. Common names Being a South American plant, its most common names ...

tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

es,

cucumber The cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the family Cucurbitaceae that bears cylindrical to spherical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

s. Some

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

is executed in Tenza.

Born in Tenza

* Juan Morales, former professional cyclist

References

{{Coord, 5, 05, N, 73, 25, W, display=title, region:CO_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Municipalities of Boyacá Department