Barbosa (Antioquia)

Barbosa is a municipality in Colombia, located in the department of Antioquia. It limits to the north with the municipality of Donmatías, to the east with the municipalities of Santo Domingo, Concepción and San Vicente, and to the west with the municipalities of Girardota and Donmatías. It has two towns: El Hatillo and Popalito.

History

The territory that today forms the municipality of Barbosa was visited for the first time by the Spanish conquerors, like the entire Aburrá Valley, by Jerónimo Luis Téjelo, sent by Marshal Jorge Robledo.

Robledo did not set foot on Barbosa territory in the year 1541, but Don Gaspar de Rodas did in 1574 without the passage of the second having meant the founding of any town. Gaspar de Rodas, first governor of the Province of Antioquia on April 6, 1592, granted it to Nicolás Blandón, a resident of Arma and in payment for the good services provided to the crown as mayor of the city of Arma and for liberating the valley of the warlike Aburraes and Niquias Indians, the lands from Hatillo downwards, including all the mountains on either side of the Aburrá River, two years later, in 1595, 3 years later Blandón changed these lands with his clearings and the few cattle that he had, for 414 cows from 2 and a half years ago, with Captain Diego FernándezBarbosa, a resident of Buga; Since then those places were known as "El hato de Barbosa" or "The pastures of Barbosa. Two or three years later, Captain Fernández Barbosa transferred these lands to the true owner, Captain Diego Suárez, mayor of Zaragoza. By then the road passing through those lands led to the mines of Cancán, Cáceres, Zaragoza, Los Remedios and Guamocó. In June 1606, Captain Suárez sold all his properties, which included those purchased from Doña María de Rodas on June 30, 1602, to Captain Francisco Jaramillo de Andrade. In this valley it was accentuated by a small group of Spaniards looking for better deals because The place was already emerging as prosperous and productive.

On August 25, 1795, Don Gabriel José Ignacio Muñoz de Rojas, who was previously mayor of Medellín, donated the land for the construction of a town hall, a prison, a parade ground and a church, which was to To be consecrated to the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Anthony of Padua, the governor José Felipe de Inciarte decreed the formal foundation. It has been maintained by many that Barbosa obtained district status in the year 1812, however, they do not cite the document on which such a statement can be based. In the census taken in 1835 it appears with 2,150 inhabitants, of which 55 were slaves.

Physical geography

The territory of the municipality is mountainous and its relief corresponds to the Colombian Central Mountain Range (Andean mountain system). The main heights that stand out towards the north of the municipality are the La Montañita heights (2400 m a.s.l.), Matasano (2100 m a.s.l.), the La Montera hill (2350 m a.s.l.) and the Cestillal blade (2400 m a.s.l.). To the south, the El Guamal (2500 m a.s.l.) and Quintero (2200 m a.s.l.) hills and the El Rodeo (2300 m a.s.l.), Norrón (2630 m a.s.l.), La Gómez (2200 m a.s.l.), San Eugenio and El Águila hills (1850 m a.s.l.).

Location

Barbosa is located at the northern end of the Aburrá Valley on the right bank of the Medellín River in a foothills of the Andes mountain range, the municipality is part of the metropolitan area, it is located just 36 kilometers from the city of Medellín and it is an obligatory passage to the northeast of the department, Magdalena Medio, Santanderes, the North Coast, and serves as an alternative route to the capital of the country.

Northwest: Donors	North: Donors	Northeast: Santo Domingo
West: Girardota		This: Santo Domingo
Southwest Girardota, Saint Vincent	South: Saint Vincent, Concepción	Sureste: Concepción

Climate

In climatic terms, Barbosa is classified as a subtropical humid forest, the headwaters are at an altitude of 1300 m above sea level. n. m. and has an average temperature of 22.2°C, and has 206 km² of territory (of which 203 belong to the rural area), it is the second largest municipality in area of the Aburrá Valley after Medellín.

Barbosa average climate parameters
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Average temperature (°C)	27.7	28.2	28.5	27.8	27.6	27.7	28.1	28.0	27.6	27.0	26.9	26.9	27.7
Average temperature (°C)	22.0	22.3	22.7	22.6	22.4	22.3	22.3	22.3	22.0	21.8	21.9	21.5	22.2
Temp. medium (°C)	16.3	16.5	16.9	17.4	17.3	16.9	16.5	16.6	16.5	16.6	16.9	15.1	16.6
Total precipitation (mm)	61	70	116	202	279	213	203	235	269	303	188	88	2227
Source: climate-data.org

Hydrography

The main water current is the Medellín River, other important currents are the Quebradas: Aguas Claras, Corrientes, Dos quebradas, El Llano, El Viento, Hatillo, La Búcaros, La Calda, La Chocona, La Herradura, Mulato, Sheep, Santa Rosa, Yarumito. The recognized barbosa puddles for their festivity.

In the municipality there is the canal called "La Tasajera Landfill" which is the drainage of the hydroelectric plant of the same name, whose waters come from the Río Grande, through this engineering work part of the water flow of the Río Grande joins the Medellín River before the natural confluence between these two rivers.

Political-Administrative Division

In addition to its municipal headquarters. Barbosa has the following townships under its jurisdiction (according to the departmental Management):

Corregimientos

Barbosa has under its jurisdiction several populated centers, which together with other villages, constitute the following towns:

Demography

According to the high figures presented by DANE from the 2005 census, Barbosa currently has a population of 42,537 inhabitants, this being the tenth urban agglomeration in the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley with a total of 3,312,165 of people. The municipality has a population density of approximately 206 inhabitants per square kilometer. 49.2% of the population are men and 50.8% are women. The city has an illiteracy rate of 8.6% in the population over 5 years of age.

Public services have high coverage, since 99% of the homes have electricity service, while 80.2% have water supply service and 78% have telephone communication.

Ethnography

According to the figures presented by DANE from the 2005 census, the ethnographic composition of the municipality is:

• Mestizos & Blancos (96%)
• Afro-Colombians (4%)

Political-administrative structure

The Municipal Council of Barbosa is a public corporation of popular election, made up of 13 councilors of different political tendencies, democratically elected for a period of four years. The council is the legislative entity of the municipality and issues agreements of mandatory compliance in its territorial jurisdiction. Among its functions are approving the mayor's projects, dictating the organic rules of the budget and issuing the annual budget for income and expenses.

Administratively, the Barbosa mayor's office is divided into two large groups: the central administration and the decentralized entities. Central administration is understood to be the set of entities that report directly to the mayor. These entities are called secretariats.

The secretariats are administrative units whose main objective is to provide services to the community or the central administration. For this purpose, the mayor's office has 7 secretariats and 3 decentralized entities: San Vicente de Paúl Hospital, Institute of Sports and Recreation -INDER- and Embaseo.

Metropolitan area

The Metropolitan Area of the Aburrá Valley is a political-administrative entity that sits along the entire length of the Aburrá Valley at an average altitude of 1538 m above sea level. n. m.

The Area is made up of 10 municipalities, and is crossed from south to north by the Medellín River which, rising to the south of it in the municipality of Caldas, already in the north, after the municipality of Barbosa , is one of the forming sources of the Porce River.

It was the first metropolitan area created in Colombia in 1980, and it is the second metropolitan area in population in the country after the Capital District of Bogotá. The total population, which adds the urban and rural population of the ten cities, is 4,055,296 inhabitants.

The main urban area of the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley is located in the center of the Valley and is made up of the four largest cities by number of inhabitants: Medellín, Bello, Itagüí and Envigado.

Education

The municipal seat of Barbosa has 5 main educational institutions which are:

• Institución Educativa Presbítero Luis Eduardo Pérez Molina (Público)
• Institución Educativa Liceo Manuel José Caicedo (Público)

• 

  Educational institution Luis Eduardo Arias Reinel (Público)
• Cooperative educational institution Simon Bolivar (Private)
• College Forming Leaders (Private)

Economy

The municipality of Barbosa had an incipient industry until the middle of the XX century, period in which the paper and textile industries were established in the town. Before the arrival of industry, the district lived on livestock and agriculture.

The municipality is an obligatory passage for people going to the Atlantic coast and Puerto Berrío. Barbosa also has a flourishing tourism industry thanks to the famous Charcos de Barbosa, and the construction of the Parque de las Aguas by the Metropolitan Area.

It should be noted that pineapple planting, although it has lost strength, is another important area for the municipality.

Likewise, Barbosa has two paper and cardboard industries, one of wood panels (Papelsa, Kimberly Clark, and tablemac mdf, the first and only company producing mdf panels in the country, whose raw material is wood pulp) that produce several tons of paper and generate direct and indirect jobs in Barbosa and its nearby areas.

Media

In the Municipality of Barbosa, practically all possible telecommunications services are available, from public telephones, to mobile telephone networks, wireless broadband networks, navigation centers or cyber cafes, IP communication, etc.

The main company in this sector is UNE Telecomunicaciones, (under its UNE brand), recently separated from its parent company Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM).

There are three mobile telephone operators, all with national coverage and with GSM technology.

The municipality has several open-signal television channels, the 3 local channels Telemedellín, Canal U and Televida, (which cover the Aburrá Valley), a regional channel Teleantioquia, and the five national channels: the 2 private Caracol and RCN, and the 3 public Channel One, Signal Institutional and Signal Colombia. Subscription television companies offer their own channels.

The town has a wide variety of AM and FM stations, both local and national coverage, of which the majority are managed by Caracol Radio or RCN Radio, although there are other independent stations with great ratings, such as Todelar and Super, there is also a community radio station called Brillante Estéreo that you can tune into the frequency 88.4 FM

Two important newspapers circulate in Barbosa and the rest of Antioquia: El Colombiano and El Mundo, both with a long history at the regional level. The national newspaper El Tiempo also circulates. This municipality has had the great soccer players Édgar Cataño and Juan Manuel Bustamante.

Public transportation

• Buses. There is a private system of urban buses that communicate to Barbosa and Medellin. Additionally, there is the “integrated transport system” which consists of buses that communicate to the last Metro station of Medellín (Niquia) with the urban area of the municipality.

• Taxis. There are numerous taxi companies that cover the entire metropolitan area, and among them there are some with bilingual services in English. Taxi ordering service by phone is the most common and safest. Some companies provide inter-municipal services. The collective taxi service is also common; some of these collectives can be comfortable and fast, although they are usually subject to full quota.

Events

• Foundation, August 25, 1795.
• Anniversary of the municipality, August 25.
• Fiestas de la Piña, December, every year.
• Train Festivals, El Hatillo Regiment, August, every 2 years.

Places of interest

• Church of San Antonio de Padua, place of pilgrimage.
• Church of Mary Helper.
• Church of Jesus of Divine Mercy.
• Morro de la Virgen.
• Parque Diego Echavarría Misas.
• Water Park.
• Charcos, haciendas and farms.
• Camino de los Petroglifos.
• Variety of tourist farms.