North of Santander
Norte de Santander is one of the thirty-two departments that, together with Bogotá, Capital District, make up the Republic of Colombia. Its capital is the city of Cúcuta. It is a territorial entity that enjoys autonomy for the administration of sectional affairs and the planning and promotion of economic and social development within its territory, it has an extension of 22,648 km², which is equivalent to 1.91% of the national territory, located in the region northeastern Colombia. It limits to the north and to the east with the states of Zulia and Táchira of Venezuela, to the south with the department of Santander, and to the west with Santander and Cesar.
Due to its natural resources and its geographical location, it is an economic and commercial hub of the country, as well as being known as a large rural producer, especially in the agricultural sector.
Toponymy and creation of the department
Many territorial divisions were made previously in Colombia, most of them during the presidency of José Hilario López, the Norte de Santander Department was created by means of Law 25 on July 14, 1910, the territory for such Fin was formed from the northern part of the former Sovereign State of Santander (since 1886 only as the department of Santander), initially taking over the provinces of Cúcuta, Ocaña and Pamplona, a time when General Ramón González Valencia governed the Nation.
The name of Santander was given in honor of the independence hero Francisco de Paula Santander. When the previous department was divided in two, the northernmost region received the distinctive North, with which it was officially North of Santander.
Currently both departments make up the Santander Region or El Gran Santander. The demonym is nortesantandereano.
History
The history of Norte de Santander is tied in its beginnings as an administrative region to that of the department of Santander, given that both formed the same vast region since 1857 and the Sovereign State of Santander existed, however by the beginning of the century XX, the presence of investors and businessmen in the region was more oriented towards the exploitation of hydrocarbons, of which there were two great possibilities as fields in near Tibú and Barrancabermeja, from which two large concessions arose: that of General Virgilio Barco (Tibú) and that of Roberto Mares (Barrancabermeja), which gave more reasons for the separation of both departments in 1910.
Norte de Santander is an important historical area in Colombia, it has scenarios where important events occurred, including the Battle of Cúcuta, which occurred on February 28, 1813, where just Colonel Simón Bolívar began his campaign for the liberation of Venezuela, the On May 6, 1821, the Congress of 1821 was installed in Villa del Rosario, where on August 30, 1821 the Constitution of the Republic of Colombia was proclaimed, giving rise to Gran Colombia.
Cúcuta was the city where The Liberator Simón Bolívar lived and ruled the longest during his stay in New Granada. In this city is the birthplace of General Santander, it was also the epicenter of the birth of the Colombian Conservative Party (founded by José Eusebio Caro from Ocaña), the Minuto de Dios, the Colombian Air Force and other relevant events in national history.
The municipalities of Pamplona and Ocaña were founded many years before. The first stands out historically for being the starting point of several expeditions that culminated in the founding of cities such as Mérida or Bucaramanga. For its part, Ocaña was the venue for the Great Convention, in which it was intended to reach agreements regarding laws and political constitution, among them reforming the Constitution of Cúcuta or implanting a new constitution considering the one that Bolívar had already implanted in Peru and Bolivia, however, Bolívar ended up declaring himself dictator, days after the convention was terminated.
Pre-Columbian times
During pre-Columbian times, the territory of this department was inhabited by indigenous Chitareros of Chibcha descent, and by the Motilones, descendants of the Caribe, who took refuge in the mountains of the same name, where some groups still remain. These two families occupied the banks of the Zulia, Tarra and Sardinata rivers.
Currently, the region populated by Motilones Indians is north of the Catatumbo River and the Tunebos, on the banks of the Margua River. Settlers, peasant farmers and the urban population are, in their great majority, mestizo and white people.
Conquest
With the arrival of conquistadors in America, the first European to set foot in North Santander was the German Ambrosio Alfinger, who in 1530 left Coro with a troop of adventurers and invaded eastern and unexplored territory of the recently created governorate of Santa Marta. Alfínger, in search of El Dorado, arrived at the area of indigenous settlements called Tamalameque, on the banks of the Magdalena River, where he held confrontations and subdued several tribes, devastating them, such as the case of the Chimila nation tribe. He then followed Girón, in Santander, traveled from south to north through the Province of Ocaña and then returned north through the Páramos of the extinct Province of Pamplona to be assassinated by the Chimila Indian nicknamed "Francisquillo" in Chitacomar on the outskirts of the current municipality of Chinácota, in a combat with Chimilas and Chitareros Indians. With Alfínger dead, Fedro de San Martín took command of the troop and with it returned to Coro passing through the territory of Cúcuta.
In 1541 Hernán Pérez de Quesada reached the territory of Chinácota, but had to return the same year due to the resistance of the indigenous people. Shortly after, Alfonso Pérez de Tolosa, who left Tocuyo in Venezuela, reached Salazar de Las Palmas, passing through Cúcuta, but he too had to return after losing many people in clashes with the natives.
In 1549 another troop of Spaniards, commanded by Pedro de Ursúa and Ortún Velasco, Quesada's lieutenants, invaded the current Norte de Santander and reached the valleys of Pamplona, where in memory of Pamplona of Spain they founded the city they called de Nueva Pamplona, a foundation that 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 what is now Norte de Santander left. The first expedition led by Diego de Montes founded the town of Salazar in 1553, which was soon destroyed by the cacique Cínera, or according to tradition by his daughter Zulia.
In 1583 it was rebuilt by Alonso Esteban de Rangel, great-grandfather of the founder of Cúcuta, in a more appropriate place for defense in case of new attacks by the Indians. The second was commanded by Captain Francisco Fernández de Contreras, who reached the lands of the Hacaritamas Indians, and on December 14, 1570 he founded Ocaña, while the Augustinian Friars founded a convent in present-day Chinácota.
Republic
.In the period between April 17, 1850 and April 18, 1855, Santander was used for the first time as a name in an administrative entity, which was the Province of Santander whose capital was Cúcuta.
In 1857 the Sovereign State of Santander was created and its capital was established in Pamplona, which was transferred to Bucaramanga in December of that same year. In May 1858, Colombia was called the Granada Confederation and 8 states were part of it, including Santander. In 1863 the Constitution of Rionegro changed the name of the country to the United States of Colombia.
With the Political Constitution of 1886, at the time known as the "Regeneration,", the name of the country was changed again and since then the nation has been known as the Republic of Colombia. The then states began to be called departments, and these were subdivided into provinces.
At that time, the territory of the current Norte Santander department still belonged to Santander (for which reason this region of the country is known as Gran Santander) and the provinces of Cúcuta, Ocaña, Pamplona, Charalá, García Rovira were part of it., Guanentá, Soto, Socorro and Vélez. In 1905 the department was divided in two and for a time Santander had Cúcuta, Ocaña, Río de Oro, Pamplona, García Rovira, Los Santos and Fortul as provinces.
However, a new political division occurred in 1908 and as a result the department of Cúcuta existed for a short period. Again in April 1910 there were changes in the political division of Colombia; the 34 departments created in 1908 were suppressed and the country recovered the political division in force in 1905, with which Cúcuta disappeared as a department and returned to depend on Bucaramanga, until the issuance of Law July 25, 1910 with which the department was born.
With Law 25 of July 14, 1910, which entered into force on July 20 of the same year, the current Norte de Santander was given way.
Characters of the region
Four former Colombian presidents were born in this department: Francisco de Paula Santander (Villa del Rosario), Virgilio Barco (Cúcuta), Leonardo Canal González (Pamplona) and Ramón González Valencia (Chitagá).
Government and administration
The Departmental Assembly and the governor govern the destinies of the department. The first institution mentioned is a popularly elected corporation, made up of no less than eleven members and no more than thirty-one. Its members are called deputies, and are elected every four years as public servants. It currently has 26 members.
The governor is elected by popular election for a four-year term. The mayors of each municipality are also popularly elected. By tradition, bipartisanship had predominated in Norte de Santander. But, especially in Cúcuta, this trend recently ended. The legislative elections of 2006 marked the tendency to choose, not only according to the parties, but also according to the programs of the candidate for public position.
Territorial organization
| Municipalities of Norte de Santander | |
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The department has 40 municipalities divided into 6 subregions: East, North, West, Center, Southwest and Southeast; previously it was divided into the provinces of Cúcuta, Ocaña, Pamplona and Chinácota. It also includes 108 corregimientos, 106 police inspections, as well as numerous hamlets and populated sites.
Geography
North Santander is located in the northeast of the country, in the Andean region, bordering Venezuela to the north and east, Boyacá to the south, Santander to the southwest, and Cesar to the west. With 21,648 km², it is the ninth smallest department — ahead of La Guajira, Huila, Sucre, Caldas, Risaralda, Atlántico, Quindío and San Andrés y Providencia, the least extensive.
It has 40 municipalities grouped into 6 subregions, 2 provinces and a metropolitan area.
- Physiography
It is of varied geography and is made up of mountains, moors, plateaus, plains and hills, with municipalities of very varied heights, this makes it immensely rich in landscapes and climates. Throughout their territory they travel through rivers and lagoons.
It is located in the northeastern region of Colombia on the Eastern Cordillera. It limits to the north and east with Venezuela, to the south with the departments of Boyacá and Santander, a department with which it also limits to the west, as well as with Cesar.
It has three natural regions: the most broken part is represented by the Eastern Cordillera, it begins at the site known as the Santurbán knot and the Almorzadero páramo, and then becomes the Motilones mountain range. On the other hand, the plains of the Catatumbo River and the Zulia River are located to the northwest and to the south is the valley of the Magdalena River.
The sector of influence of the Catatumbo River has average temperatures of 24º Celsius with hot and humid climates, while in the Cúcuta area, it varies from dry to very dry; and in the mountainous area, there is a great variety of climates ranging from temperate to very cold, even below 8 °C.
A rich hydrographic system runs through the department with three major basins: the Catatumbo River to the north, the Magdalena River to the west, and the Orinoco River to the southwest.
- Hydrography
It has several rivers, the most important of which are the Catatumbo and Pamplonita. None of them presents pollution problems. The entity in charge of caring for these resources is Corponor.
- Climate
The climate is warm due both to its diverse and complicated relief and to the considerable smallness of the territory. Additionally, the department is currently experiencing, in 2002, and as in the rest of the world, very profound changes in its climatic conditions due to the impressive phenomenon of global warming.
The northern zone (made up of the Cúcuta metropolitan area and other municipalities) is hot, its average temperature is 28 °C, while in the páramos and the highlands of the mountain ranges temperatures are very low.
- Natural parks
- Unique natural area The Strikes
- National Natural Park Catatumbo Barí
- Tamá National Natural Park
- Regional natural parks
- Sisavita Regional Natural Park
- Regional natural park Santurbán-Salazar de las Palmas
Demographics
| Evolution of the population of the department of Norte de Santander (1912-2023) |
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Population by census.Population by projection.Source: Statoids. DANE. |
Cúcuta is the city with the largest population. Then there are Ocaña and Villa Del Rosario, these municipalities contributing approximately 60% of the department's population. They are followed by the municipalities of Los Patios and Tibú.
The municipalities that surround the previous cities and that make up the metropolitan area of Cúcuta, the Province of Ocaña and the Province of Pamplona have 92% of the population of the department.
- Ethnography
- Mestizos & Blancos (98.28%)
- Black or Afro-Colombian (1.25%)
- Amerindians or Indigenous people (0.60%)
- Gypsies (0.02%)
- Housing statistics
- Type of Housing: In the department citizens prefer to live in houses (89.8%), then in apartments (6.0%) and finally in rooms (4.2%)
- Homes with economic activity: It is important to clarify that this does not refer to unemployment. Instead it means the home they have inside a company. This type of company is known as "family enterprises" or "Fami-Pymes", and among the most popular are bakeries, shops and the like.
- People living abroad: The vast majority of North Americans living abroad do so in Venezuela, due to their border status with that nation, in the United States and in Spain.
| Demography of Norte de Santander | |||
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| Type of housing | Economic activity homes | People living abroad | |
Economy
The department's economy is the twelfth-fifth largest in the country and is supported by rural sectors, hydrocarbon production, commercial, banking, and transportation services.
The exploitation of its natural resources such as coal (a part of the coal exploitation in the department is done illegally) and oil (among others) is the main axis and exports are directed to neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Ecuador.
Agriculture is the basis of the economy with products such as cotton, rice, tobacco, cocoa, sugar cane, coffee and wheat. One of the biggest profits is the exploitation of oil in Tibú. The Catatumbo region, in the north of the department, is known for the illicit cultivation of coca leaves, raw material for the manufacture of cocaine, which causes it to be a zone of conflict between the public forces that seek its eradication and the groups outside the law, who seek control of their production. The city of Cúcuta is a free and industrial zone, which has given a special boost to tourism and commerce in general. Mining in the department (with the exception of oil extraction) is underdeveloped despite the wealth it possesses in gold, copper, iron, uranium, silver, aluminum and others. The footwear, textile, food and beverage industries stand out.
The western sub-region (the province of Ocaña), is a large producer in the poultry and agricultural sectors, it also stands out in products such as: cane, avocado, coffee, cocoa, red onion, pineapple, chonto tomato, paprika, cucumber, red or Zaragoza beans, chili pepper, cassava, cane, panela, fruits and vegetables, the central and northern subregions stand out in the production of African palm, coffee and cocoa, the southwestern subregion is a large producer of chonto tomato, potato, strawberries, garlic, wheat, bell peppers, corn, beans, peas, carrots; finally, the southeastern region has a large production of cane, coffee, plantains, and vegetables.
50.4% of the population resides in the city of Cúcuta, capital and main economic, social and political center of the department.
Transportation
There are two active airports in the department: the national Aguas Claras Airport in Ocaña and the Camilo Daza International Airport in Cúcuta, which, in addition to national destinations, has authorization as an international one, also having several regional airports.
Culture
Gastronomy
The food in Norte de Santander is as original and enjoyable as its inhabitants. The dishes of the region are simple to prepare and satisfy the palate of its inhabitants.
Among the typical dishes offered in the department, the mute stands out, a regional dish par excellence, hayacas, long and rectangular in shape, kid, which is eaten roasted or cooked, chickpea cakes, which are a kind of empanadas and corn wraps. They are also famous among visitors, the rampuche and the panche.
Within the range of famous sweets in the region, the cut of goat's milk stands out, made with goat's milk, sugar and panela; the dragged, the grapefruit, made with the peel of the syrupy fruit and the panelitas of goat's milk, among others.
Symbols
The department's anthem was made official on October 22, 1932. Its lyrics were written by Teodoro Gutiérrez Calderón and the music was in charge of Maestro José Rozo Contreras.
By means of ordinance number 8 of November 27, 1978, the Flag of Norte de Santander was created as an emblem of the department. The same ordinance specified that the flag would have the same proportions as the Flag of the Republic of Colombia and would be made up of two horizontal stripes of equal width; the upper one is red and the lower one is black with four yellow stars located as follows: one on the red color, another on the black color and the remaining two on the dividing line of the colors, each one representing one of the provinces that made up the department (Cúcuta, Pamplona, Ocaña and Chinácota).
Also in Ordinance No. 8 of November 27, 1978, the creation of the Coat of Arms and seal of the department of Norte de Santander was included in its First Article. The shield would be the same one that had been approved by the Constituent Congress of Villa del Rosario de Cúcuta, for Gran Colombia in 1871, with a legend that would say North Santander department.
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