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 eme ...

of the Colombian department Boyacá. Tenza borders

La Capilla La Capilla is a town and municipality in 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 Bo ...

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 th ...

. The altitude of the municipality in the

Tenza Valley The Tenza Valley ( Spanish: ''Valle de Tenza'') is an intermontane valley in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The valley stretches over the southeastern part of the department of Boyacá and the northeastern part of Cundinamarca. ...

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

History

Tenza used to be 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 conquistadores led by

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 ...

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, p ...

s. The village was ruled by the ''

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 ...

'' 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 ''hoa'' was the ruler of the ...

'' of

Hunza Hunza may refer to: * Hunza, Iran * Hunza Valley, an area in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan ** Hunza (princely state), a former principality ** Hunza District, a recently established district ** Hunza River, a waterway ** Hunza Peak, a mou ...

. 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 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 ...

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/), 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 means "going down at night".Etymology Tenza
- accessed 07-05-2016

Economy

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 is the most important activity. The

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 ...

of Tenza is relatively modest with

bean 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 ...

pea The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...

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. ...

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. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated ...

arracacha 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 ...

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word , ...

es,

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.banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry (botany), berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, Cooking banana, bananas used for ...

s. Some

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

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