Cucuta

Cúcuta, officially San José de Cúcuta, is a Colombian municipality, capital of the department of Norte de Santander and nucleus of the Cúcuta Metropolitan Area. The city is located in the homonymous valley, at the foot of the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, close to the border with Venezuela. It covers an approximate area of 1,117 km², with an urban area of 64 km² (divided into 10 communes) and a rural area of 1,053 km² (divided into 10 corregimientos). It has a population of 777,106 inhabitants, which places it as the municipality most populous in the department and the sixth most populous municipality in the country. In the same way, its metropolitan area (made up of the municipalities of Villa del Rosario, Los Patios, El Zulia, San Cayetano and Puerto Santander) has a population that the million inhabitants.

The city was founded as a parish on June 17, 1733 by Juana Rangel de Cuéllar, a resident of Pamplona living in the area, under the name of San José de Guasimales, as part of an initiative of the white and mestizo locals to separate from the Indian town of Cúcuta (current San Luis neighborhood). Later, the name was changed to San José de Cúcuta, Castilianization of "Kuku-ta", in honor of the indigenous people of the region. From its foundation in the 18th century and throughout the Spanish viceregal era, the parish was It was consolidated as one of the most important settlements in eastern New Granada and Spanish America, thanks to its strategic position between the fertile lands of the province of Pamplona and the province of Maracaibo, receiving in 1792 the title of "Very Noble, Valorosa y Leal Villa" by means of a Royal Decree issued by King Carlos IV of Spain.

The city is the political, economic, industrial, artistic, cultural, sports and tourist epicenter of Norte de Santander and its metropolitan area is constituted, in turn, as the most important urban settlement on the Colombian-Venezuelan border along with the Venezuelan city of San Cristóbal, due to its commercial dynamics and its historical importance in the consolidation of the modern states of Colombia and Venezuela as well as their diplomatic relations, hosting events such as the Battle of Cúcuta of 1813, the Constituent Congress of 1821 in Villa del Rosario, the site of Cúcuta during the Thousand Days War, the signing of the 1941 Boundary Treaty between Colombia and Venezuela, the 1959 Treaty of Tonchalá, the 2008 Paz Sin Fronteras benefit concerts, and the 2019 Venezuela Aid Live, among others. Likewise, it played a significant role during Colombian immigration in Venezuela and, recently, it has become one of the most important crossing points of the Venezuelan migration crisis.

As the capital of Norte de Santander, the city is home to the main departmental government bodies such as the Norte de Santander Governor's Office, the Norte de Santander Assembly, the Superior Court of the Cúcuta Judicial District, the Norte de Santander Administrative Court, Santander and the regional branches of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation and the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic. Cúcuta is connected by road with Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Valledupar, Cartagena de Indias and, due to its border condition, with Venezuela. It has an air terminal, the Camilo Daza International Airport, and a land terminal, the Central de Transportes de Cúcuta.

Its public university, the Francisco de Paula Santander University, is one of the flagship universities of eastern Colombia. It also has the presence of other locally and nationally renowned universities such as the University of Pamplona, the Free University, the University of Santander, the Simón Bolívar University, the Santo Tomás University, the FESC, the Minuto de Dios University Corporation, among others. It also houses the main headquarters of SENA for Norte de Santander.

Toponymy

The city has a name composed in the style of almost all Spanish foundations in America: San José (one of the most widespread names in the continent thanks to the devotions of San José in Spain), honors José de Nazareth. The name "Cúcuta", Hispanicization of Kuku-ta, refers to the chief of the group of indigenous inhabitants of the region and was used repeatedly to name the valleys of the Pamplonita, Zulia and Tachira rivers, as well as from several adjacent areas, such as "Villa del Rosario de Cúcuta" or "Pueblo de Indios Cúcuta", among others. Kuku-ta in the language of the local aborigines meant "The House of the Goblin".

The city was known as San José de Guasimales from 1733 to 1793, when it changed its current name.

His shield bears the legend «Very Noble, Valorous and Loyal Villa de San José de Cúcuta», a title that was granted to him by royal decree in fair recognition of his industrious children, shortly before the end of the century, by King Carlos IV of Spain. This was possible thanks to the help of the lawyer from the Royal Court, José María Maldona, who was in charge of legally presenting the title of the town to the Viceroy of New Granada, José Manuel de Ezpeleta, on behalf of the inhabitants of the city.

The city has been named:

• The North Pearl.
• First land port of Colombia.
• Basquetera Capital of Colombia.
• Border gate.
• Cuna de la República.
• Green town.
• Green municipality of Colombia.
• City of trees.
• Commercial food of Colombia

Symbols of Cúcuta

The official symbols of the city are: the flag, the shield and the anthem.

Flag

Flag of the city.

The Flag of Cúcuta is made up of two equidistant horizontal stripes, an upper black one and a lower red one. The black color of the flag symbolizes the hidden wealth of the soil as well as the latent wealth of the people of Cucuta, while the red color symbolizes the blood of the martyrs of Independence, the sacrifice and the tenacity of the rebuilders of the city. By decree, the flag also carries the coat of arms of the city in its center.

This flag made its debut on December 20, 1928 in the city of Cali, Colombia. This happened within the framework of the opening of the First National Olympic Games. On this occasion the standard bearer was Néstor Perozo, accompanied by other footballers from Cúcuta Deportivo F.C.

It was thought that the reason was to honor the memory of the banana workers murdered during the Tragedia de la Ciénaga or Massacre de las Bananeras that occurred a few days before, but the truth is that the athletes wanted to create this flag with the colors red and black to honor the cyclist Ciro Cogollo, assassinated in Cúcuta on December 2, 1928.

It wasn't until 1940 that the players decided to tell the true story behind the creation of the flag. Finally, the mayor of Cúcuta Carlos A. Rangel formalized this flag as the official one, on May 3, 1988, by means of the respective Decree.

Shield

City shield.

Although Cúcuta is a relatively old city (founded in 1733), it had absolutely no insignia to identify it. That is why in 1958 a request was made to the Academy of History of Norte de Santander, to carry out an investigation on a possible unknown coat of arms or to design one. The coat of arms then presented by the academy was adopted by Decree No. 32 of February 3, 1958.

The shape of the shield is rectangular at the top and rounded at the bottom, carrying as a currency in a silver border the title conferred on the city by Royal Decree of the King of Spain Carlos IV of “Very noble, Valorous and Leal Villa de San José de Cúcuta”.

The shield has two divisions. In the upper one are the arms of Mrs. Juana Rangel de Cuéllar, who donated the land for the founding of the city on June 17, 1733. Mrs. Juana's arms were 5 fleurs-de-lis placed in the shape of an X, silver in color and red on golden background.

In the lower division, the coat of arms bears the arms that the Congress of Cúcuta adopted for Greater Colombia by Law of October 6, 1821 (and which today are the arms of the department of Norte de Santander). It consists of a small bundle of spears, with an ax crossed, bows and arrows, tied with a tricolor ribbon; spears were attributes of the Roman consuls; the ax, symbol of the right of life or death; the bow and arrows were an attribute of the Indo-Hispanic race that inhabited the region.

Political-administrative organization

Branches of public power

Cúcuta City Hall.

The city is the capital of the department of Norte de Santander. It houses departmental government entities such as the Governor's Office and the Assembly and other state agencies. Cúcuta is governed by a democratic system based on processes of administrative decentralization, generated from the proclamation of the Constitution of 1991. It is governed by a mayor (executive power), a municipal council (legislative power) and a Superior Court (judicial power).

The Legislative Power is represented at the local level by the Cúcuta Council, which is a popularly elected Administrative Corporation, made up of 19 councilors of different political persuasions, democratically elected for a period of four years, and whose operation is guiding axis the democratic participation of the community. The council is the legislative entity of the city that issues binding agreements in its territorial jurisdiction. Its functions include approving the projects of the mayors, ensuring the preservation and defense of cultural heritage, issuing the organic regulations of the budget and issuing the annual income and expense budget.

Palacio de Justicia de Cúcuta.

In the judicial branch, Cúcuta is the main nucleus of the Judicial District of Cúcuta, which is divided into the judicial circuits of Cúcuta, Los Patios and Ocaña, which have the presence of courts in all areas of civil law, family, criminal and administrative. The judicial Circuit of Cúcuta has jurisdiction in 13 municipalities of the department: Cúcuta, Arboledas, Bucarasica, El Zulia, Gramalote, Lourdes, Puerto Santander, Salazar de las Palmas, San Cayetano, Santiago, Sardinata, Tibú, and Villacaro.

As for control entities, Cúcuta is the headquarters at the departmental level of the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation, the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic and the National Registry of Civil Status.

Administrative division

See: Political division of Cúcuta

The urban area of the municipality is divided into 10 communes, which, in turn, contain 6,185 blocks and nearly 800 neighborhoods. For its part, the rural area is comprised of 10 corregimientos and 9 hamlets.

Each commune and corregimiento has a Local Administrative Board (JAL), made up of no less than five and no more than nine members, elected by popular vote for a period of four years that must coincide with the term of the Municipal Council.

A JAL fulfills functions concerning the municipal plans and programs for economic and social development of public works, surveillance and control of the provision of municipal services in its commune or corregimiento, and the investments made with public resources, in addition to what concerns the distribution of global items assigned to them by the municipal budget.

Communes	Corrections	Homework
1 - Centre	Aguaclara	Arrayanes
2 - Eastern Centre	Banco de Arena	Boconó
3 - Eastern South	Good Hope	High Wind
4 - Eastern	The Soldier	El Carmen
5 - North-Eastern	Puerto Villamizar	The Portico
6 - North	Ricaurte	The Rodeo
7 - Northwest	San Faustino	The Jarra
8 - Western	San Pedro	Puerto León
9 - Southwest	Guaramito	Puerto Nuevo
10 - Cemetery	El Palmarito
Maps of Cúcuta
Urban map	Commune Map	Rural map

Metropolitan Area

The city together with the municipalities of Villa del Rosario, Los Patios, El Zulia, Puerto Santander and San Cayetano make up the so-called "Cúcuta metropolitan area". Its operation is governed in accordance with Law 128 of 1994 ("Organic Law of Metropolitan Areas").

The entity is directed by the Metropolitan Board, which is advised by the Metropolitan Planning Council. It also has a director, a driver and an executive secretary. Lastly, there is the technical director, the administrative and financial deputy director (who works with the general treasurer), and the transportation and recovery deputy director.

Urban development has exceeded the administrative limits and has spread through the nearby municipalities that make up the Cúcuta Metropolitan Area, whose population amounts to more than 1 million inhabitants. De facto, the Venezuelan cities of San Antonio and Ureña are conurbated with the city of Cúcuta, although they are not officially part of the metropolitan area.

History

Pre-Columbian times

The Spaniards recognized two large provinces or ethnic nations in what is now North Santander: the Chitareros, who inhabited an extensive strip from the slopes of the Chicamocha River basin to a good part of Venezuelan Táchira, and the Hacaritamas and Carates, whose Dominions extended through the Province of Ocaña and the west of the Catatumbo region, as well as innumerable chiefdoms or jungle towns in the lowlands or hot lands, among them the infamous motilones of the Catatumbo River basin.

The current region of the municipality of Cúcuta, in particular, had an important presence of the Chitarera ethnic group, distributed under different indigenous groups throughout its entire territory, such as Tapaguá, Arcabuzazo and Chicaguaos in the Zulia river basin, Chopo, Tegualaguache, Bochalema, Iscalá, Chinácota and Cúcutas by the Pamplona river and Cania and Capacho by the Táchira river.

Conquest

In 1530, Ambrosio Alfinger, governor of the Province of Venezuela, left Santa Ana de Coro accompanied by hundreds of men and invaded the eastern territory of the newly created governorate of Santa Marta in order to gather resources. Attracted by the legend of El Dorado, the expedition continued through the current territories of Cesar, Norte de Santander and Santander, devastating several indigenous tribes on its way, such as the Chimila tribe of the Upar Valley. In 1533 Alfinger, with his expedition already weakened, tried to return to Coro through the páramos of the Province of Pamplona, dying in combat with the Chitareros Indians in Chitacomar (present-day Chinácota). With Alfinger dead, Fedro de San Martín took command of the troop and with it returned to Coro, passing through the current territory of Cúcuta.

In 1549, after several failed expeditions, a host of Spaniards commanded by Pedro de Ursúa and Ortún Velasco, lieutenants of Hernán Pérez de Quesada, invaded the territory of Norte de Santander and the same year they reached the valleys of Pamplona, where in memory of Pamplona of Spain they founded the city of Nueva Pamplona, which soon attracted numerous settlers due to the good climate and the rich gold mines that were discovered in the region. It was from there that the expeditions that completed the conquest of the current territory of Norte de Santander left.

With the founding of the city of Pamplona in 1549, the valleys of Cúcuta (named in honor of Cacique Cúcuta) fell under its jurisdiction and were immediately considered as ejidos of the city for grazing cattle., from which a successful export-oriented agro-livestock company was developed.

Colonial Period

Indian Village

At the end of the XVI century, the Crown ordered that the entrusted indigenous communities that were working on the hacendadas, ranches and with the landowners, their encomenderos, they had to settle like the towns of Spain, separated from the Spaniards. The republics of Indians had to be implemented in the valleys of Cúcuta as well as in the entire nascent Province of Pamplona.

In 1623, the visitor Juan de Villabona y Zubiaurre toured the province of Pamplona carrying out a program of reforms with this objective. He issued a series of measures that transformed the lives of indigenous communities throughout the region, including those of Cúcuta. In 1623 he ordered that the Indians of the valley be settled in an Indian reservation, which, in the end, did not materialize.

In 1641, with the visit of Diego de Carrasquilla Maldonado, oidor of the Royal Court, the settlement of the Cúcuta Indians was definitively achieved in a settlement located on the right bank of the Pamplona River, today the San Luis neighborhood. Once populated, the Indians were demarcated and assigned the lands of their reservations and the doctrine was established for the people.

San Faustino de los Ríos

The village of Cúcuta Indians (Actual San Luis), San Faustino de los Ríos and the parish of San José de Guasimales, separated by the Pamplonita river, southwest of Maracaibo Lake. 1753

Despite all the efforts made by residents of Pamplona, Maracaibo, La Grita, San Cristóbal and even Mérida, the navigation route through the Zulia River and the Cúcuta River has always been hampered by fear of the Motilona tribes that attacked travelers passing by. In this way, in one of the attempts to pacify the warlike Indians, the foundation of a new city on the banks of the river was proposed, in response to the capitulations of war signed in December 1639 by Captain Antonio de los Ríos Jimeno with the President Sancho Girón.

The settlement was founded under the name of San Faustino de los Ríos on February 15, 1662 by Captain Jimeno, on the eastern bank of the Pamplonita River.

However, Jimeno was quickly declared incompetent as he had failed to carry out the mission entrusted to him. The following governors did not have better luck either, since the route through Zulia began to take shape as a path that favored smuggling to the detriment of the Royal Treasuries. As a consequence of this, the jurisdiction of the governorate of San Faustino de los Ríos was considered a "refuge for outlaws" and territory outside the action of the councils of the cities of Pamplona and Mérida.

San José de Guasimales

Little by little, the Indian town was growing demographically and economically. Its inhabitants dedicated themselves to agriculture, livestock and river transport. Some whites and mestizos also began to settle in the valley, whereupon the population stabilized. In the first decades of the XVIII century, cocoa cultivation was introduced throughout the region and a period of economic prosperity began. Cocoa was exported to Europe and the other American colonies via Lake Maracaibo and many people began to form cocoa farms near the rivers that allowed the product to be transported.

However, the indigenous inhabitants and the residents of Pamplona who lived in the reservation began to have major clashes, motivating a process of separation both civilly and religiously that would result in the founding of the Parish of San José de Guasimales.

One of the most important people for the foundation of the parish was Juana Rangel de Cuéllar, who donated half a stay of cattle on June 17, 1733 for the land of the parish and the surrounding town.

Notorious for the present writing of obligation to live, like us the neighbors of the City of Pamplona of the New Kingdom of Granada of the Indies, residents of the Valley of Cúcuta, jurisdiction of that city, where we attend and have rooms and houses of our country dwellings we want the ones that we will continue to name: Having joined and being certain and well built of what we can in the case here is expressed, ]

Ancient panoramic of the city.

In a deed dated June 25, 1733, power was granted to Nicolás Dávila Maldonado, Captain Joseph Sánchez and missionary Manuel Núñez so that on behalf of the founders they could request authorization from the Archbishopric of New Granada and before the Royal Court for the erection of the parish and the foundation of the city. Likewise, the founders, with their goods and belongings, ensured an income for the Parish Priest. In the Deed of June 28, 1733, each one of the founders of the town and the erection of the parish promised to contribute what was necessary for the construction of the Temple. Finally, on November 20, 1734, the parish was officially verified, with the title of parish erection issued by the president of the Royal Court, Rafael de Eslava.

19th century

Independence

On February 28, 1813, a military confrontation took place in the city between the independence troops of Simón Bolívar made up of 400 men and 800 royalists of Ramón Correa, in the so-called Battle of Cúcuta. Bolívar and his troops entered Cúcuta victors and in the headquarters of liberated Cúcuta, the caudillo of the Independence gives the report of victory.

Earthquake remains of 1875.

Cucuta earthquake

On the morning of May 18, 1875, the city and its surrounding regions were devastated by an earthquake measuring 10 on the Mercalli scale, the most devastating earthquake in the city's history.

The earthquake completely destroyed the current regions of Cúcuta, Villa del Rosario, San Antonio del Táchira and Capacho. It also caused serious damage in San Cristóbal, La Mulera, Rubio, Michelena, La Grita, and some settlements in Panama such as the city of Colon, among others. It was felt in Bogotá and Caracas.

The real number of deaths is not clear because, although 461 corpses were officially counted as a result of the disaster, the same Bulletin of June 3 issued in Pamplona, where this figure was published for the first time, suggests that the total number could have been double, or even more, so it is estimated that the total number of victims, only in Cúcuta, could have risen to 1,000 or 3,000 people, a third of the total population at that time.

Reconstruction

After the earthquake, the city was left in ruins, poverty rates increased dramatically and many of its inhabitants were relegated to misery, for which reason the authorities of the Sovereign State of Santander, headed at that time by Aquileo Parra, commissioned to implement various measures to mitigate the effects of the earthquake and rebuild the city, such as the temporary militarization of the region to prevent the emergence of looting and banditry, as well as requesting the federal government of the United States of Colombia to send resources funds allocated to the reconstruction process.

The reconstruction of Cúcuta, in turn, led to a modernization of the old narrow and "disorganized" from the old city. With this objective, the state appointed the Venezuelan engineer Francisco de Paula Andrade Troconis, who implemented a new urban scheme planned to accommodate a population of 25,000 inhabitants, based on the population growth that the city had up to that moment, and boost the boom industrial. The scheme included a layout of streets and wide platforms, where important buildings of various kinds would be accommodated, such as the mayor's office, churches, the municipal jail, customs, the cemetery, among others.

Cúcuta Railway

Cúcuta Railroad

At the end of the XIX century, it was the first city in Colombia to have a railway. The railway was organized into four branches: North, East, South and West.

• North: Its construction began in 1878 and was completed ten years later. He connected Cúcuta with Puerto Santander and was of an international character, as he connected with Venezuela.
• East: Its construction began in 1893 extending to the River Táchira.
• South: Its construction began in 1921, drove to Pamplona, but only came to the site called El Diamante
• West: He intended to reach Tamalameque, and could not be realized for economic reasons.

The company was liquidated in 1960.

20th century

War of a Thousand Days

Departments of the Santander region in 1908. The Department of Cúcuta in purple color.

The Thousand Days War was a civil war that devastated Colombia and Panama between 1899 and 1902. In Colombia there was an economic crisis caused by the abrupt drop in the international price of coffee and the weakness of the conservative government due to the sickness and advanced age of President Manuel Antonio Sanclemente. The political differences between conservative and liberal groups were abysmal and radical sectors of both parties armed armies. The Conservatives had the Military Forces and paramilitary elements, while the Liberals operated as guerrillas. Cúcuta played an important role because its population was liberal in majority and many had radicalized against the conservative government. The population was entrenched and besieged by radical liberals between early June and mid-July 1900.

After the Thousand Days War ended in 1902 and the XX century began, the Industrial Revolution spread in Cúcuta with the advent of aviation In 1919 Camilo Daza, from Norte Santander, was the first Colombian to fly an airplane and for this reason he is recognized as the forerunner of aviation in Colombia.

With the century began a period of urban flourishing as well. In the 1920s, the first airport in Latin America was inaugurated, with Colombia being the first country to have commercial airlines. The Camilo Daza International Airport was inaugurated in 1971 by the then President of the Republic.

Metropolitan area

In 1991, through Decree No. 000508, the Cúcuta Metropolitan Area was created, made up of Cúcuta -as the main nucleus-, as well as Villa del Rosario, Los Patios, El Zulia, Puerto Santander, and San Cayetano. Thank you Due to the fact that this conurbation exists legally, important projects are being developed for the development of the city. One of them consists of placing two tolls on the roads to Venezuela (one on each road), in order to expand part of the Pan-American Highway to 6 lanes.

21st century

Megaprojects (2004-2008)

During the period 2004 - 2008, the construction of 5 vehicular overpasses was carried out, which significantly improved the road infrastructure and mobility in the city.

The megaprojects, which are financed with resources from the valuation contribution for general benefit, were carried out in the San Mateo roundhouse, the airport roundabout, construction of the La Gazapa bridge over the Pamplonita river, depressed from Libertadores avenue under the Arnulfo Briceño vial, Bogotá canal avenue with Santander diagonal. The most important sector of the city center was also renovated.

Economic resurgence

The entry into force of the Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and the United States in 2007 offered great opportunities for the industrial and commercial development of Cúcuta due to its border status. The industries of Venezuela would establish their factories in Cúcuta to export their products to the United States as if they were Colombian, in addition to the city products from the northern country will arrive at very low prices that would be acquired by Venezuelans.

The private company has made large investments with the construction of two shopping centers; Unicentro with 200 stores and Ventura Plaza with 300.

Urban development

In 2005, a restriction was lifted that prevented the construction of buildings with more than 8 floors, due to the concentration of clay in the land on which the city is built. The suppression of this standard occurred thanks to the creation of new technologies. Buildings with up to 20 floors are currently being built.

It is so, that in 2007 the city had real estate growth of 112%, leading the nation in the proportion of buildings built and real estate transactions. In the same year, real estate sales doubled.

Megaprojects (2021)

Currently in the city of Cúcuta 3 megaprojects are being built:

1. The Cúcuta Metropolitan Aqueduct "Francisco de Paula Santander" replacing the Cinera Reservoir, which will provide water to all the municipalities of the metropolitan area and which will be ready by 2021.

2. The Interactive Park of Culture, Science, Technology and Innovation of the Border "Eureka", which will be built on a lot owned by the municipality, located in front of the Jardín Plaza Shopping Center, next to the Eastern Road Ring.

3. The Virgilio Barco Convention Center, which will be located in the metropolitan municipality of Villa del Rosario and whose construction is carried out within the framework of the Bicentennial of the Constitution of Cúcuta.

Demographics

In light of the censuses, it can be seen that Cúcuta, from 1951 to 2021, has continuously increased its population, even though during this period it has given rise to other municipalities such as El Zulia, Tibú and Puerto Santander. However, given the evolution of the population in growth rates, it has fallen from 4.97% in 1964 to 1.61% in 2005.

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

• Whites and Mestizos: (98.1%)
• Black, mulatto, Afro-Colombian or Afro-descendant (1.0%)
• Indigenous (0.9 per cent)

Security

Drug seizure.

Between January and September 2008, there were 412 violent deaths (murders, suicides, and deaths in traffic incidents, in armed confrontations, and in accidents), 74 less than the same period of the immediately previous year. If this trend continues - a decrease of 15 percent - 2008 will be the year in which fewer deaths of this type have occurred in the last decade.

Statistics issued by the Secretariat for Citizen Security (Metrosecurity) -based on those of the National Institute of Legal Medicine- indicate that in the first nine months of 2008 there were 272 homicides, 21 percent fewer (72 events) than in the same period of 2007. That is to say, that the rate per 100,000 inhabitants between last January and September is 45, when in the same period of 2007 it was 12 points higher.

According to the Center for Criminological Investigations (CIC) of the National Police, the rate per hundred thousand inhabitants in Bogotá is 18; Medellín, 29, Cartagena 22, Barranquilla 22, Cali 57 and Bucaramanga 32. The statistics revealed by Metroseguridad indicate that January (41), March (39) and May (36) were the months of 2008 in which the most murders were recorded. Communes 6, 7, 8 and 9 are where the greatest number of episodes were presented.

On April 11, 2008, María Eugenia Riascos (mayor of Cúcuta, 2008 - 2012) pointed out that in view of the latest deaths that have been recorded in the city, the disarmament plan and the payment of rewards are being studied. She also stated that Not only when the murder of an important person occurs, rewards must be paid, but whenever such a crime occurs. He recognized that people who witness a murder do not collaborate with the authorities out of fear and that for this reason one of the measures has been accepted. their proposals that consist of the creation of the Cúcuta Metropolitan Police that seeks to reinforce security in the capital of Norte de Santander.

The main places in which the population aged 15 and over feel unsafe in Cúcuta are: on public roads and on public transportation.

In 2013, Cúcuta was ranked as the 22nd most violent city in the world by Business Insider, an American economics and technology internet portal (the study does not include Asia, Europe and some parts of Africa), but it was questioned by the local authorities.

In 2014, the border city was ranked 47th out of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world, a report by the citizen council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice of Mexico.

In 2017 with the economic crisis in the neighboring country, the city faced the massive arrival of Venezuelans in search of economic resources, and with it the increase of illegal groups for territorial control for smuggling and drug routes. At the end of 2017, Venezuelan citizens represented 43% of immigrants in the city.

Geography

Cúcuta Panoramic from Cerro Tasajero.

Noroccidente Tibu Sardinata	North Tibu Catatumbo (Venezuela)	Northeast Puerto Santander
West The Zulia		East Ureña (Venezuela)
Surocdent San Cayetano	South Villa del Rosario The Patios Bochalema	Survivor San Antonio del Táchira (Venezuela)

The municipality has a total area of approximately 1,117 km², borders to the north with Tibú and the Venezuelan municipality of Catatumbo, to the northwest with Tibú and Sardinata, to the west with El Zulia, to the southwest with San Cayetano, to the south with Villa del Rosario, Los Patios and Bochalema, to the southeast and east with the Venezuelan municipalities of San Antonio del Táchira and Ureña respectively, and to the east with Puerto Santander.

Cúcuta Geography.

Geology and relief

The territory of Cúcuta is flat to the north, and mountainous in its central part and in its limits to the south, where it presents several mountainous bodies detached from the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, such as the Las Campanas mountain range or the Altoviento mountain range. The city, for its part, is located in the homonymous valley, at the foot of the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, at an average altitude of 320 m a.s.l. no. m., on the border with Venezuela.

The highest place is the corregimiento of Ricaurte (area 0.4 km²) about 41 km from the city center, founded by the priest Demetrio Mendoza in 1921 under the name of Mucujún, whose temperature ranges between 10 and 17 °C, and is located at 1666 m s. no. m. The furthest and lowest place is the corregimiento of La Punta located 67 km from the center of the city, at 80 m a.s.l. no. m.. One of its most emblematic points is the top of Cerro Tasajero (from the indigenous word meaning "sacred hill") at 987 m a.s.l. no. m., the hill is covered by a tropical dry forest that is home to several families of flora such as legumes and small animals such as rodents, which are threatened by mining.

Hydrology

Its main hydrographic sources are the Pamplonita river, the Táchira river and the Zulia river, the first being the most important in the municipality, with a length of 147 km and an area of 80,000 ha, covering an urban space of more than 9 km and a municipal basin of 31,909.64 ha.

Seismology

Tachira depression.

The Cúcuta valley is located within the Maracaibo block, a semi-independent tectonic block of the northern Andes Plate bounded by the Bucaramanga-Santa Marta to the west, Oca-Ancón to the north and Boconó fault systems to the east/southwest, at the foot of the region called the Táchira Depression, where the Tamá massif and the Mérida mountain range separate.

The Boconó and Aguascalientes fault systems, which cross the southwest of the city, are the main fault systems in the municipality, present surface seismic activity between 1 and 70 km deep and are closely linked to the devastating earthquake of 1875. In the same way, Cúcuta is also in the range of influence of other seismically active zones, such as the Mesa de los Santos or the faults attached to the so-called Indentor de Pamplona.

These characteristics mean that the area, and in general the majority of the department of Norte de Santander, is considered one of the regions with the highest geological risk in the entire country. Despite this, Cúcuta does not have studies of seismic microzoning that allow us to know exactly how the buildings built on the different types of soil in the city would behave in the event of a major seismic event.

Seismicity

Several earthquakes of considerable magnitude and intensity have affected the municipality, such as the 1875 Cúcuta earthquake, the 1894 Mérida earthquake, the 1950 Arboledas earthquake and the 1981 Cúcuta earthquake, among others. The 1875 earthquake, with an estimated intensity of 10 MM and EMS, has been the most devastating earthquake in the history of Cúcuta, killing between 400 and 1,000 people from Cucuta and destroying almost all the standing buildings at the time.

Flora and fauna

Lycania tomentosa, known as OitÍ

Flora

After the earthquake of 1875, its inhabitants took the tradition of planting a native tree in their home for each born. Due to the number of trees in the urban area, Cúcuta is called Ciudad Verde, such is its quantity that in 1996 it had 850,000 trees, much more than its population. Its mountains are covered with tropical dry forest and the government agency for environmental care at the departmental level is Corponor. In the municipality there are 71 species of trees, both native and introduced, the cují is the symbol tree of Cúcuta, it has the shape of an umbrella and experts say that it is the last resort left for eroded areas such as the surrounding hills. There are 164 plant species in the city of Cúcuta.

Wildlife

Chrysomus icterocephalus or toche, emblematic bird of the city.

In Cúcuta there are 34 species of reptiles grouped into 2 orders (Squamata and Testudines), 13 families and 31 genera.

The Colubridae family registers 14 species, which represents 38% of the species, being the richest of reptile species in the city. The Gekkonidae family, with 4 species, represents 11%, while the Boidae (3 species) and Polychrotidae (3 species) families each represent 8% of the species. The reptile fauna of Cúcuta is similar to that of the wetlands of the department of Córdoba and that of the Neguanje sector, in the Tayrona PNN.

Environmental issues

Invasion of property

Antonia Santos, Cucuta.

In a short time the city has experienced growth in the limits of the urban area, human settlements are reflected in the suburbs that have appeared due to the invasion, these lack paved roads and basic services. Although a large part of the city was formed in this way, since 70% of their homes are the result of the illegal appropriation of land, in sectors such as the western ring road (west of Cúcuta) the capacity of local authorities has been exceeded. It was precisely the construction of the road in 2012, that in 5 years more than 100 invasions appeared in its surroundings in a non-systematic way that have blocked even legal construction projects. Not having territorial planning generates air pollution problems for residents. rivers, the subsoil and citizen competitiveness. The absence of a sewage system for rainwater and sewage puts at risk not only the rivers in the area, due to the large amount of wastewater that They will end up directly, if not to the invaders themselves, given the leaks of water in the sloping land where the buildings, many of them made of wood, were built. The armed conflict and the crisis in Venezuela have been important points for the increase in invaded land.

Tree felling

Although Cúcuta has received various nicknames such as "Green City" and "City of Trees"" At present, the tree density has been drastically reduced by indiscriminate felling in order to produce charcoal and by construction in the city.

Loss of wild habitat

From 2012 to the present, there have been sightings of wild cats in the metropolitan area of Cúcuta. On October 17, 2012, an ocelot was wandering injured in the sector of the road ring, In 2013, a margay was seen on top of a tree, that same month a puma that was trapped in a bird pen was rescued by the environmental police. On September 10, 2015, a puma cub was in a house that reports Carmen de Tonchalá and was later taken to the Barranquilla zoo. On October 20, 2015, an ounce was walking through the streets and entered a supermarket.

These appearances of wild animals have been due to deforestation to expand the agricultural frontier, coal mining, cattle ranching, the opening of roads and construction. The encounter between felines and humans generates controversy because animals They lose their habitat and flee in search of food that they find available in the cities, but humans fear and reject the animal due to economic losses for the peasant.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification, the city is located in a transition zone between the tropical savannah climate with dry summer As and the warm tropical semi-arid BShx. The temperature of the municipality of Cúcuta is determined by the thermal floors that go from cold, through temperate to warm, where the urban area is, which has an average temperature of 27.6 °C. The highest temperatures they oscillate between 35 and 38 °C and the lowest ones oscillate between 17 and 20 °C. The average annual precipitation is low-moderate: 622 mm. The windy season occurs between June and September, with gusts exceeding 70 km/h.

Average Cúcuta climate parameters 1981–2010
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	38.5	38.5	39.0	40.5	41.0	40.5	41.0	42.5	42.5	39.6	38.0	40.5	42.5
Average temperature (°C)	30.3	30.8	31.1	31.5	32.8	32.9	33.0	33.9	34.0	32.7	31.2	30.1	32.0
Average temperature (°C)	25.8	26.3	26.7	27.0	27.8	28.1	28.0	28.5	28.4	27.4	26.5	25.8	27.2
Temp. medium (°C)	21.3	21.8	22.3	22.7	23.4	23.9	23.6	23.7	23.3	22.7	22.4	21.7	22.7
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	16.6	16.0	18.0	18.0	18.0	17.4	18.4	18.0	18.6	18.0	17.6	16.8	16.0
Total precipitation (mm)	37	30	38	68	57	32	23	30	42	107	86	72	622
Days of precipitation (≥)	7	7	9	11	13	13	15	12	13	15	13	10	137
Hours of sun	231.5	209.5	215.9	214.0	219.8	220.0	234.6	227.0	231.0	225.3	209.0	215.3	2228.9
Relative humidity (%)	76	74	75	76	71	64	62	61	65	72	78	79	71
Source: Ideam

Transportation

Terrestrial

National

North Central Troncal, Los Patios-Cúcuta section

The city is connected to the rest of the country through two primary routes, which are Route 55 and Route 70. Likewise, it has different variants that connect it with the different border points of the department, such as Puerto Santander, La China and the Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander international bridges.

Route 55, also known as Troncal Central del Norte, includes the section between Bogotá and the border of Puerto Santander with Venezuela. It is the most important connection, since it allows Cúcuta to connect with the capital and, virtually, with the rest of the routes in the Andean region.

Route 70 includes the section between the Simón Bolívar International Bridge and Aguachica, crossing the Ocaña region. This route crosses the Troncal del Magdalena, which allows the city to connect with the Caribbean region and its capitals.

Due to the poor state of the La Palmera-Presidente section, in the middle of the Páramo del Almorzadero region, of the Troncal Central del Norte, a common alternative to get to Bogotá is the detour from the intersection between routes 55 and 66 in Pamplona to Bucaramanga, where you take route 45A to reach the capital.

Urban

Popular border transport.

The main means of urban transport, for its part, are buses (or buses) and taxis from private companies authorized by the municipal power, such as Transportes Puerto Santander S.A (TraSan), Transporte Guasimales (TransGuasimales), Cooperativa de Transportadores del Oriente (CoopTransOriente), Radio Taxi Internacional Ltda. (R.T.I.), among others.

In 2007, the National Planning Department conceived a project for a mass transportation system for the city, to replace the old transportation system run by private companies, under the name of Metrobús, but it never materialized.

In 2022, the Cúcuta mobility master plan is being carried out with the aim of improving mobility in the city, which will have a period of 11 months in which a mass transportation system could be established in the city.^{[citation required]}

Transport Terminal

Cúcuta transport terminal.

The city has a transport terminal, planned in 1961 and completed in 1967, being one of the first cities in Colombia that, in its time, had a passenger transport terminal. However, currently The terminal suffers from significant maintenance and traffic flow deficiencies due to its location, which have led to renovation or replacement projects.

In 2002, the Council of Cúcuta authorized a loan of 300 million pesos for the construction of a new transport terminal that could meet the new transport requirements of the city, whose projected investment at that time was 8,000 million pesos. pesos. The work, however, was stopped in 2012 and, with an estimated investment of 30,000 million pesos until 2017 and a patrimonial detriment of 5,000 million pesos, it became a white elephant that was never finished. In 2019, the DIAN announced a prompt action to auction off the assigned lot for a much lower value than required at the time.

Aerial

Camilo Daza Airport.

Cúcuta has the Camilo Daza International Airport, which was inaugurated on October 10, 1971 by the then President of the Republic, Misael Pastrana Borrero. Its name pays homage to the forerunner of aviation, Camilo Daza.

In 2014 the airport mobilized almost 1,000,000 passengers. It has direct and non-stop routes nationwide to Bogotá, Medellín, Arauca, Barranquilla, Cartagena and Bucaramanga. In 2005 the Civil Aeronautics of Colombia announced a renovation of the airport.

On April 26, 2019, the expansion works of the airport carried out by the Ministry of Transport and the National Infrastructure Agency were concluded, where its main objective was the remodeling of the façade, expanding the building by 3945 m² for national departures and international, as well as the construction of 2 Aerocivil buildings.

Economy

Frontier colombo-venezolana

The city stands out for binational trade and the manufacturing industry, footwear and leather goods. Its location in the border area between Colombia and Venezuela has allowed strong links to exist with the Venezuelan city of San Cristóbal.

Its Free Zone is the most active in the entire country and in all of Latin America, largely due to the fact that Venezuela is Colombia's second largest trading partner.

The most developed industries are: dairy, construction, and textiles, footwear, and leather goods. It is a first-rate producer of cement and the clay and stoneware industry. Coal mining also occupies an important sector in the economy of Cucuta. The Francisco de Paula Santander University in Cúcuta, the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, the University of Antioquia and the Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia in Tunja are the only ones that offer the Mining Engineering degree in the country.

The official currency in Colombia is the peso and therefore it is the official currency, however, due to its proximity to Venezuela, the bolivar is accepted by the vast majority of commercial establishments. Due to the economic crisis in neighboring Venezuela, the country is becoming dollarized by steps and Cúcuta is the supply center of the border, arriving a large amount of dollars.

Economic zone

In December 2019, by presidential decree, the Special and Social Economic Zones (ZESE) were created in Colombia, which are geographically delimited areas located in Norte de Santander, La Guajira and Arauca, bordering Venezuela, and the cities of Armenia and Quibdó. This program aims to establish a special tax regime in order to attract national and foreign investment in sectors such as commerce, industry and agricultural activities. Among the benefits that Zese will offer investors is the possibility of accessing a 0% rental rate for the first five years and a 50% reduction in the general rental rate for the following five years.

Infrastructure

ATN Television Headquarters.

Telecommunications

Cúcuta has modern telecommunications services: fixed telephony (more than 100,000 lines installed) and cellular, wireless broadband networks, Internet cafes, and IP communication. The main companies in this sector are Claro, Telefónica Movistar and UNE.

Fixed and mobile telephony and Internet

The fixed telephone service is provided by the companies Telefónica, Telecom, UNE (of EPM Telecomunicaciones) and Claro. The mobile telephone service is provided by all mobile telephone operators in the country with 100% coverage, including the municipalities of the metropolitan area. Claro, Tigo, Movistar and Tigo have offered 3G data connections since 2008. Likewise, the three operators have GSM technology. The company Avantel works in the city offering the trunking service.

Percentage of public services with which housing is available in Cúcuta.

Landline telephony

Cúcuta was the first city in Colombia and one of the first in the world to have fixed telephone service. There are three fixed telephone operators in the city: Telecom (from Telefónica, which had been providing said service), Claro and EPM Telecomunicaciones. The use of fixed telephony is very low, giving way to mobile telephony, which has more users than fixed telephony, a phenomenon that occurs in the rest of the country.

Media

There are several free-to-air television channels, one regional: TRO and five national channels: the 2 private Caracol Televisión and RCN Televisión, and the 3 public Channel 1, Canal Institucional and Señal Colombia. The cable operator Claro has its own channel in the metropolitan area called Tu Kanal.

More than 20 AM and FM radio stations are established in the city, both with local and national coverage, most of which belong to the radio stations RCN Radio and Caracol Radio, although there are other independent stations with national tuning like the Olympic ones. Also included are UFPS Radio, a station from the Francisco de Paula Santander University, and Radio San José, owned by the University of Pamplona. The National Police and the Army have stations in the city.

The city's local newspaper is La Opinión, as well as national newspapers such as El Tiempo and El Espectador.

Aqueduct and sewage system

Aguas Kpital Cúcuta E.S.P. It is responsible for the water supply and sewerage service. The supply is made using water from the Pamplonita and Zulia rivers, which according to the local environmental director, the city has water for 30 years. The distribution is carried out through the so-called high network, which is supplied by gravity, and the low network, which has a system pumping.

Energy

Census

Thermotasa, electricity generating and marketing company

Centrales Eléctricas de Norte de Santander (CENS) meets the electricity demand of the city, the municipalities of the conurbation, the department of Norte de Santander and the southern region of the department of Cesar. It also exports energy to the Venezuelan state of Táchira. CENS owns the distribution infrastructure and all the substations. The risk rating agency Fitch Ratings Colombia has awarded Cens the triple A note on several occasions.

Shower heater

In the 1970s, Colombia was facing a deep energy crisis due to climatic phenomena, to meet the demand in the region, the national government in charge of its entities, CENS and the Colombian Institute of Electric Power (ICEL) raised the idea of a thermoelectric power plant in Norte de Santander. This power generator began to be built 20 km from the center of Cúcuta (San Cayetano) on the banks of the Zulia river to guarantee the necessary water to cool the systems of the central and its proximity to several coal mines. After three years of construction and with a total investment of USD 107.7 million, the Tasajero Thermoelectric Power Plant was inaugurated. Initially, the company was under ICEL and in 1987 it passed to CENS. In 1992 CENS entered into a lease contract and Termotasajero was granted permits to market the energy. In 1996 the company became part of the Grupo Termotasajero being the company Termotasajero its only asset. Since 2006, the company has been a subsidiary of the Inversiones Termotasajero group formed by Pensiones Protección, Porvenir, Citi-Colfondos and Skandia, whose parent company is Colgener, a Colombian investment company incorporated in 2007 that operates mainly in the brokerage industry.

Gas

Many sectors of the city have pipeline networks through which natural gas is distributed. Through them, the company Gases del Oriente provides gas service to 56,000 customers. Gas is also sold in cylinders by the company Norgas, a modality that has 60,000 users. The two figures add up to 116,000 and subtracting them from the 140,000 properties that make up the capital area, shows that approximately 24,000 are outside of both services.

To combat gas smuggling from Venezuela, gas has a value that is 14% less than in the rest of the country.

Urban road network

According to the city's Land Management Plan, the city's road network is made up of the main road infrastructure and the alternative road infrastructure. the latter in turn made up of the pedestrian infrastructure and the infrastructure for bicycle use. According to these parameters, the road network is classified under three main labels: arterial, zonal and neighborhood.

• 

  Zero Avenue

• 

  Atalaya Autopista at the height of the exchanger

• 

  Diagonal Santander

• 

  Avenida Los Faroles

• 

  Avenida Demetrio Mendoza

Health

Erasmo Meoz University Hospital, main medical center of the city.

Law 100 of 1993 governs health in Colombia, which is regulated by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. In Cúcuta and Norte de Santander, health is administered by the Municipal Health Institute (IMSALUD) and the Departmental Health Institute, respectively. Entities such as the Colombian Red Cross, the Colombian Civil Defense (emergencies, calamities and natural disasters) and the Family Welfare (ICBF) are part of the social protection system.

Northern Red Cross of Santander.

The city has the following public health institutions (or State Social Enterprises, ESE): The E.S.E. Erasmo Meoz University Hospital, the E.S.E. Francisco de Paula Santander (Social Security Clinic), the E.S.E. CardioNeuroPulmonar Rehabilitation Center, the E.S.E. Hospital de Los Patios and the E.S.E. Hospital of Villa del Rosario. As for private health centers, the San José Clinic, the Duarte Medical Clinic, the North Clinic, the Santa Ana Clinic, the Leones Clinic, the La Samaritana Clinic and Profamilia (sexual and reproductive health) stand out.

The aforementioned entities are part of the network of institutions that provide health services attached to the Municipal Health Secretariat and the Departmental Health Secretariat. The Erasmo Meoz Hospital boasts a fourth-level size and is specialized in performing highly complex surgeries, such as transplants and reimplantations. Additionally, there are medical care points distributed in the different communes of the city, where care is provided in various degrees of complexity. In the city there is a significant number of health promoting entities (E.P.S's) such as Colsanitas, SaludCoop, CafeSalud, among others.

Education

The city's educational system includes primary, secondary and university education establishments. Official education in primary and high school is free and university education has a low cost. There is also a varied system of private colleges and universities.

In the city there are multiple secondary education institutions with a high academic level. Regarding technical and technological training, the city has the National Learning Service (SENA), the Technological Center of Cúcuta and the Technological Units of Santander, as well as various similar private institutions.

As for public libraries, the city has the Julio Pérez Ferrero Library, the main library of the city and the department, as well as a network of reading rooms scattered throughout the city. There is also the cultural area of the Banco de la República and the system of local university libraries. There is also a small public library in the renovated Mirador de Cristo Rey.

Schools

San Juan Bosco Salesian Institute.

Basic education is developed in four levels: pre-school, primary, secondary and secondary. Academic activity takes place between February and November, with three months of vacation (June, December and January) as well as two weeks of recess: Easter and the first week of October.

The city has approximately 269 educational establishments, of which 61 are official and 208 are unofficial. The Calasanz school was ranked 22nd in the ICFES exam tests in 2001, later it climbed to the position 16 when one of his students managed to be the best in the Saber 11 Tests of the year 2015 at the national level. In 2018 there were 3 schools in the city among the 15 best in the country, with the National Technical Institute of Commerce located in the ranking of the 5 best schools in the whole country.

Universities

The city of Cúcuta has a large number of higher education institutions, both public and private. Below is a list of the public and private universities that are based in the city.

Public

1. The Francisco de Paula Santander University is the most important of the city, and one of the flagship universities in the eastern Colombia. It offers technical, technological and professional academic programs in all areas of knowledge, being highly recognized by its civil engineering, architecture, nursing, bachelor's and law programs. It has the highest number of high quality accredited programs in the city of Cúcuta, and is the only one that offers doctoral programs in the city.
2. The University of Pamplona is present in the city, through a CREAD (Regional Center for Distance Education) in Cúcuta and a headquarters in the metropolitan municipality of Villa del Rosario, where several careers are developed including medicine. It offers face-to-face and distance academic programs.
3. The Higher School of Public Administration offers careers related to public administration.
4. The Cúcuta Technological Center offers technical careers and short courses focused on "education for work".
5. The National Open and Distance University (UNAD) offers professional careers, technological careers and master's degree in virtual mode.
6. The National Learning Service (SENA) has a regional in the city of Cúcuta, distributed in two headquarters, a main one in the Barrio Pescadero and a satellite in the citadel of Juan Atalaya. It offers technical and technological programs, in the presence and distance modality. In November 2007, the SENA Regional Norte de Santander obtained the certification of quality management ISO 9001-2000, for the great achievements at the Multisectoral Centre (CAIM) (the provision of the comprehensive vocational training service for the sectors of trade and services, industry, construction and health) as well as the Center for Agricultural and Extractive Sector Care (CASA).
7. The Technological Units of Santander offers technical and technological careers.

Private

1. The University of Santander offers both professional and technological academic programs.
2. The Free University offers administrative and engineering careers, and is well known for its law school. The same is ISO 9001-2000 certified.
3. Simon Bolivar University offers academic programs of law, business administration, international trade and business, psychology, social work and systems engineering.
4. Antonio Nariño University offers professional careers in a face-to-face manner.
5. FESC offers both face-to-face and distance academic programs in the techniques of technology, technology and professional, as well as specializations and masters, being well recognized by its faculties of graphic design and fashion design.
6. La Corporación Universitaria Autónoma del Norte offers social communication and social work careers.
7. Remington University offers distance academic programs.
8. The Universidad Santo Tomás offers academic programs at a distance.
9. The Fundación Universitaria San Martín offers distance academic programs.
10. The Minute University Corporation of God offers academic programs away.

Francisco de Paula Santander University. University of Santander. Sectional SENA Watchtower. FESC. Free University. Cúcuta Technological Center. Higher School of Public Administration.

Arts and culture

Cucuteña identity

Francisco de Paula Santander

Many of its citizens have participated in the development of the history of Colombia, among which are General Francisco de Paula Santander (a native of Villa del Rosario, soldier and statesman at the time of independence), General Camilo Daza (from Pamplona, precursor of aviation in Colombia) and Virgilio Barco (former president of the Republic). Among the athletes, Fabiola Zuluaga stands out, one of the best exponents of tennis that Colombia has had, Jossimar Calvo, a gymnast who has won several medals in the Pan American and Olympic Games, and James Rodríguez, a soccer player who plays in Europe.

According to the Government of Norte de Santander, some of the most illustrious people from Cucuta are the following:

• Francisco de Paula Santander. Military and political hero of the independence of Colombia.

• Virgilio Barco. President of Colombia (1986-1990).

• Antonio José Lizarazo Ocampo. Counselor. President of the Constitutional Court of Colombia.
• James Rodriguez. Player of Colombia's football selection and Everton football club. In 2014 he won the gold boot of the FIFA World Championship.
• Fabiola Zuluaga. The best tennis player in Colombia's history.

• María Camila Osorio Serrano. Colombian tennis player, winner of the United States Open Junior category in 2019.
• Elijah M. Soto. Músico who composed the Brisas del Pamplonita, one of the most traditional bambucos in Colombia.
• Endry Cardeño. First transgender actress on Colombian television, winner of several awards including TVyNovelas to best actress.
• Rafael García Herreros. Eudist priest, founder of the Catholic religious group Minute of God.

• Julio Pérez Ferrero. Highlighted pedagogue.

Cultural infrastructure

Julio Pérez Ferrero Public Library.

Centro Cultural Quinta Teresa.

The city has the following spaces for cultural purposes:

1. Julio Pérez Ferrero Public Library. It is the main library of the city and in it there are various cultural activities such as the Feast of the Book. There are also various reading rooms spread throughout the city, as well as a library in the Mirador Cristo Rey.
2. The Cultural Area of the Bank of the Republic has a library, as well as rooms for art exhibitions and artistic presentations. The city is home to different cultural events organized by the Secretariat of Culture and Tourism, which include national and international theatre.

1. Centro Cultural Quinta Teresa is a colonial house built in 1893 and restored in 2014, and currently works as a cultural centre.
2. Centro Cultural Torre del Clock is a multipurpose building. It is currently the seat of the Secretariat of Culture of Norte de Santander.
4. Casa de la Cultura, founded in 1960 and is currently the CREAD (Centro de Educación a Distance) of the University of Pamplona.

Gastronomy

Cucuteña gastronomy is a variety of Colombian gastronomy and a subclass of Santander gastronomy. They are traditional dishes such as chickpea cake, rice with chicken, rice with meat, pea rice and cassava rice. The mute, soup prepared with pork, corn, potato and chickpeas, served with rice and chickpea and Yuca cakes. Stuffed potato cake is also eaten.

Kid, which is eaten roasted or cooked, like kid pepitoria, which is prepared with offal of heart, kidney, liver, fried with onion and tomato, as well as other ingredients.

The turmada, a kind of cake that is prepared with boiled eggs, sabanera potato, cheese, onion, tomato, paprika, parsley, celery joint, beer sausage (optional), hogao, milk, cream, black sauce and pepper, It is the quintessential dish of the city. As for traditional drinks, panela water stands out, and in terms of sweets, goat's milk cuts, dragged, combined sweet and solteritas.

Morcilla.

The black pudding or stuffing is also consumed, which is a sausage made from coagulated blood, generally from pigs, and dark in color.

Hayaca is a typical wrapped dish from Venezuela and Cúcuta. It consists of a corn flour dough seasoned with chicken or chicken broth and colored with onoto or achiote, stuffed with a stew of beef, pork and chicken or chicken (although there are versions that contain fish), to which olives, raisins, capers, paprika and onion are added, wrapped in a rectangular shape in banana or bijao leaves (palm similar to that of the banana, although of texture stronger), to finally be tied with a wick or pita and boiled in water.

Literature and Art

During its history, Cúcuta has seen the birth and has served as a catapult for writers, musicians, actors and painters of local and national stature such as the orchestra maestro Pablo Tarazona Prada, the screenwriter Carlos Duplat, Miguel Méndez Camacho, Elías Mauricio Soto, Eduardo González, Carlos Perozzo, among many others.

Hasta el sol de los venados, a novel written by Carlos Perozzo, is one of the most important works on the city, describing Cúcuta in the 1970s in a novelistic format.

The Cúcuta Book Festival, held at the Julio Pérez Ferrero Library, is the most important literary event in the department and one of the most important in the region. It has been held since 2005 and, over the years, where hundreds of guests have gathered, artistic and literary works of various kinds have been presented and tens of thousands of spectators have gathered year after year.

Sports

The General Santander Stadium, the Toto Hernández Coliseum and the Carlos Ramírez Paris water complex, in the Lleras Restrepo district.

Different types of sports, both individual and collective, are practiced in Cúcuta, with soccer and basketball being the most traditional and popular sports in the city. In the same way, there is an important participation in sports such as speed skating, rugby, tennis and gymnastics, among others.

The Municipal Institute for Recreation and Sports (IMRD) of Cúcuta is the government entity in charge of promoting and controlling everything related to sports practice in the municipality.

Football

The practice of soccer in the city dates back to the beginning of the XX century, with the founding of Club Deportista in 1913 by part of the Dominican David Maduro and the Venezuelan Federico Williams, and the creation of the Cucuteña Sports Association in 1914 by various local clubs.

For professional soccer development, the city has the General Santander Stadium, one of the venues with the largest capacity in the country with 45,000 spectators. The city also has a large number of fields for soccer practice amateur around the entire urban area.

Cúcuta Deportivo is the city's professional soccer team. Previously, it played in the First A Category of Colombian Professional Soccer, after being promoted in the 2018 Águila Tournament. It is one of the historic clubs in Colombia, founded on September 10, 1924 as Cúcuta Foot-ball Club, it has won a title of Colombian first division championship in the 2006-II season and a runner-up in 1964. Likewise, it holds three second division titles achieved in the 1995-96, 2005 and 2018 seasons. It participated in the 2007 Copa Libertadores reaching semifinals, losing against the Argentinian Boca Juniors; and in the 2008 Copa Libertadores, reaching the quarterfinals, losing to Santos from Brazil. On November 22, 2007, he obtained various awards and recognitions from the Fox Sports television network, Colombia edition.

Basketball

Fabiola Zuluaga, sports figure of the city.

The city has been named the "basketball capital of Colombia," not only because of its weight in the history of national basketball, but also because of the achievements that the city's native teams have reaped over the years. throughout its existence. The main venue for sports in the city, the "Toto" Hernández, is one of the most important in the country and has hosted various regional and international events, such as the 1955 South American Basketball Championship, the 1980 South American Championship of Champion Clubs, the 1982 World Basketball Championship and the South American Women's Basketball Championship of 1984.

Previously, the Cúcuta Norte team represented the city in Colombian Professional Basketball, winning the 2008 and 2009 tournaments. Its current representative in this sport is the Motilones del Norte team, which, like its predecessors, plays its matches local at "Toto" Hernandez.

Tennis

In recent years, tennis in Cúcuta, particularly women's tennis, has gained strength in the national sporting context, hosting an ITF 15000 tournament in 2017, the "Copa Ciudad de Cúcuta" in 2018, and an ITF 25000 tournament in 2019.

Fabiola Zuluaga and María Camila Osorio, two of the best tennis players nationwide, have given sport a special place in the city and in the department.

Gymnastics

The city stands out nationally for its competitors in gymnastics, especially artistic gymnastics. Jossimar Calvo, a native of the city, is considered the best gymnast in Colombia, having won several gold medals in the South American Games, Pan American Games and various world artistic gymnastics competitions. Likewise, other competitors stand out such as Jesús Romero Montoya, a prominent athlete in the Pan American Games who suffered a disabling accident in 2002, Jairo Ruiz Casas, current coach of the National Gymnastics Team, or Ángel Barajas, a promise of artistic gymnastics with participation featured in the 2021 Artistic Gymnastics Pan American Youth.

The Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista minor coliseum, the center of gymnastics activity in the city, is one of the most important venues nationwide.

Others

Currently, the city presents an expansion in terms of the development of new sports disciplines. Among these disciplines, rugby can be highlighted, with the creation in 2005 of the Cúcuta Rugby Club. Today there are 3 senior clubs that compete regularly, Cúcuta Rugby, Cobras Rugby and Carboneros UFPS. There are also centers of development such as the University of Santander, and the Seine. In the under-18 category there is a youth league, made up of Cobras Rugby Club and Templarios Clubs, schools such as La Salle and INEM, UFPS and the Cazadores Sports Training School. Recently, Coldeportes gave its endorsement for the creation of the Norte Santander Rugby League made up of teams from Cúcuta and, to a lesser extent, from Ocaña, Pamplona and El Zulia.

Other sports that have a solid presence in the city are swimming, which is available at the Carlos Ramires París aquatic complex located in the vicinity of the General Santander Stadium, speed skating, with two skating rinks for practice, and futsal, represented by the Cúcuta Niza team in the Colombian Futsal League.

Architecture and urbanism

The urban perimeter presents a rich architecture related to the Independence of Colombia. Other places that are part of the architectural heritage are the Julio Pérez Ferrero Library, the Clock Tower as well as the Quinta Teresa and the Carmen Church, the latter two They are part of the small number of buildings that survived the 1875 earthquake.

Another place to highlight is El Malecón, which is located on Libertadores Avenue and runs for about 10 kilometers along the banks of the Pamplonita River with an ideal infrastructure for recreation and nightlife.

Large shopping centers and multinational stores have recently opened, such as Centro Comercial Ventura Plaza, Unicentro and Jardín Plaza.

Churches

Cathedral of Cúcuta

In Cúcuta, religious temples have traditionally been dedicated to the Catholic religion, although there are also other religious buildings dedicated to other Protestant Christian groups, such as Evangelism, Pentecostalism, Adventism, the Movement of Saints of the Last Days, Jehovah's Witnesses, among others.

The neoclassical-style Cúcuta Cathedral, the Nuestra Señora del Carmen Chapel, the San Luis Gonzaga Minor Basilica, the Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro Parish, among others, stand out. These temples located in the center of the city preserve religious objects of high value.

On the other hand, among the Evangelical-Pentecostal churches is the Christian Center, linked to the Council of the Assemblies of God of Colombia, with several offices in the city, and whose main headquarters in Cúcuta, in the Los Pinos neighborhood, It has an auditorium with capacity for 5000 people.

Monuments

Monument to the Motilon Indian.

The city has an important variety of monuments, statues and busts in memory of events and characters from local and national history. Some of the most important are:

• The statue of Francisco de Paula Santander, located in Parque Santander, in homage to the prosper of independence.
• The Column of Padilla, located in the district of El Contento. It was erected in 1923 in homage to the victory of José Prudencio Padilla in the battle of Lake Maracaibo.
• The Monument to the Battle of Cúcuta, in tribute to Simon Bolivar and the Battle of Cúcuta.
• Christ the King, the second monument in honor of Jesus Christ the oldest in Latin America, after Christ the Redeemer. It was built in 1947.
• The Monument to Arnulfo Briceño, North-Santanderean composer of renown at the national level, located in the homonymous redoma.
• The Motilon Indian Monument, located at the road intersection of the Transport Terminal, in tribute to the Motilian Indians. The work is considered one of the most iconic in the city.

Parks

Cúcuta is characterized by having a large number of parks and green areas.

Park	Description	Image
Parque Grancolombino	It's the largest in the metropolitan area. It houses the Natal House of Santander and the Historical Temple (where the Congress of Cúcuta was held in 1821, where the Constitution of Cúcuta was drafted and promulgated, the first constitution of the country.)
Santander Park.	It is located in the heart of the city, 5th and 6th Avenues, 10th and 11th Streets opposite the City Hall and the Metropolitan Cathedral.
Plaza La Victoria or Parque Colón.	Located in Barrio La Playa, 12th and 13th Avenues 2.a and 3.a, opposite the Julio Pérez Ferrero Library and close to the building of the governorate of Norte de Santander and the Torre del Clock. In its center is a monument to the victory of the patriots in the Battle of Boyacá.
National Park or Parque de La Bola	Located on Avenida 3.a, between 8th and 9th streets. Another soccer field that later became one of the most important parks in Cúcuta. It houses the Santander Building and the monument to the Globo Terráqueo donated by Italian migrants.
Simon Bolivar Park.	Located in the Colsag sector. It has an equestrian statue of the Liberator, founded in bronze, replica of an erection in Rome by Pietro Canónica. Donation of the Venezuelan government, was founded in the workshops La Estancia de Caracas, by sculptor Martín Toledo.
Parque Juana Rangel de Cuéllar.	It is located in the diagonal Santander with avenida 6.a. There is a square for the founder, according to July 14, 1926, of the Municipal Council; it corresponds to the famous and traditional Carora courtyard.
Mercedes Park.	Located in front of the San Antonio Church, he pays homage to the cucumbered heroin Mercedes Ábrego.
Parque Francisco Andrade Troconis	Located in the Malecón, in front of the school Calasanz. It hosts a bust designed by Olinto Marcucci, paying homage to Francisco de Paula Andrade Troconis, a Venezuelan engineer who designed the layout for the reconstruction of the city after the 1875 Cucuta Earthquake.
Antonia Santos Park.	Located on seventh Avenue with 6th Street, it exhibits the bust of heroin, gifted by the artist Alberto Jurgesen in 1922.

Boardwalk

Cowboy.

El Paseo de los Próceres, known simply as El Malecón, is a green area located in the Colombian city of Cúcuta, on Avenida Los Libertadores, on the banks of the Pamplonita River. It is one of the most recognized places and considered one of the most important in terms of tourism, art and culture in the city, where around 15,000 people can easily attend on a normal weekend. In it there are different spaces for sports activities such as skateboarding or bicicros, cultural development, entertainment and the commemoration of historical figures and events. Many of the festivities celebrated by the city's population also have a center there, such as Halloween, Little Candles Day or Mother's Day, the latter celebrated in the city on the last Sunday of May, unlike the rest of the country.. The promenade is also recognized for its Christmas lighting during the month of December.

At the beginning of the XX century, the place functioned as a retaining wall for Pamplonita, which at that time caused constant flooding and damage to the city's infrastructure, but it was suitable as a pedestrian route after the construction of the avenue, in 1973, made walks along the ronda del río popular. The boardwalk has undergone several renovations to make it a place for local tourism.

Twinned cities

• Bucaramanga, Colombia
• Medellin, Colombia
• San Antonio del Táchira, Venezuela
• San Cristóbal, Venezuela
• Tunja, Colombia
• Ureña, Venezuela
• Zaragoza, Spain