Risaralda

Risaralda is one of the thirty-two departments that, together with Bogotá, Capital District, make up the Republic of Colombia. Its capital and most populated city is Pereira. It is located in the center-west of the country, in the Andean region, bordering Antioquia to the north, Caldas and Tolima to the east, Quindío and Valle del Cauca to the south, and Chocó to the west. With 4,140 km², it is the fourth least extensive department —being ahead of it the departments of Atlántico, Quindío and San Andrés y Providencia, the least extensive— and with 230 inhabitants/km², the fourth most densely populated, behind San Andrés y Providencia. Atlántico and Quindío. It belongs to the coffee region and the paisa region.

Toponymy

At the beginning of the XVIII century, the Spaniard Jerónimo de Rizaralde built a vast cane farm in the middle of the river where he produced molasses and panela and had a zacatín installed to get brandy. Little by little, the residents began to identify that part of the river with the name of Rizaralde: so they spoke of the Rizaralde river, the Rizaralde road, the Rizaralde lands and, in the end, the word Rizaralde became Risaralda, and This is how a part of the river and the narrow valley that it ran through continued to be known.

General information

The department of Risaralda, with an extension of 365,300 ha, is located in the central sector of the central-western Andean region of the country, in the middle of two large poles of economic development (department of Antioquia to the north and Valle del Cauca to the south, extending between the central and western cordillera); whose slopes descend towards the Cauca River; It also borders the departments of Caldas to the northeast, Tolima to the east, Quindío to the south, and Chocó to the west.

It is made up of 14 municipalities of which the city of Pereira is the capital. The municipalities are classified into subregions: subregion 1 Pereira, Dosquebradas, Marseille and Santa Rosa de Cabal, subregion 2, Apía, Balboa, Belén de Umbría, Guática, La Celia, La Virginia, Quinchía and Santuario, and subregion 3, Mistrató and Pueblo. Rich. It also has 19 rural police inspections, 687 villages and 34 corregimientos.

The headwaters of the municipalities are between 920 and 1,840 m s. no. m.; covering the 4 main thermal floors of the department, as follows: warm (8.9%), medium (51%), cold (31%) and páramo (8.9%). The average temperature of the region ranges between 18 and 21 °C.

The department's hydrographic network is made up of two major basins, the Cauca River and the San Juan River. The physiographic formations are comprised of the volcanic massifs of the central and western cordilleras, flat and narrow valleys formed by the natural basins of the Otún, Cauca, Risaralda and La Vieja rivers.

Its main heights are: Nevado de Santa Isabel (Pereira), Cerro de Tatamá (Sanctuary), Cerro de Caramanta (Mistrató), Alto de las Palomas (Pueblo Rico), Alto de Pelahuevos (Apía), Cuchilla de la Serna (Mistrató), Cuchilla de San Juan (Apía), Cuchilla del Contento (Apía), Cuchilla la Tribuna (Pereira), Alto del Nudo (Dosquebradas) and Morro Azul (Pereira), Alto de la Campana (Apía) and Alto de La Cristalina (Bethlehem of Umbria).

The soils of the department have their origin in igneous rocks, volcanic ashes and derivatives of sedimentary rocks and alluvial and colluvial materials. According to these materials, the following land units are found in the municipalities: Manila, Parnazo or 200, unit 10 or Chinchiná and Malabar, with unit 10 or Chinchiná being the largest in the coffee zone.

Regarding the agrological classification, 6.4% of the departmental area (except for the municipalities of Pueblo Rico, Mistrató and Belén de Umbría that do not have an agrological study), corresponds to classes II, III and IV, 77.2% to classes V, VI and VII and 16.4 % to class VIII and regarding the agrological aspect, mainly Mj units are found. and Fn., which occupy 58.6% of the total area considered suitable for a wide variety of crops and forests. In the department there is a great variety of life zones, which are distributed as follows: bmh-PM (40.3%), bmh-MB (28.7%), BP-pm (9.4%) and the rest (21.5%) correspond to bs -T, bh-T, bh-T, bh-PM, bp-MB, bh-M, bp-M, among others.

History

Pioneros del departamento

Before the conquest, the territory was inhabited by the quimbayas, freeloaders and caramantas. The first conqueror to reach the territory was Sebastián de Belalcázar in 1537; later an expedition arrived in charge of Juan de Vadillo. At the head of some Spaniards, some towns were founded, however the decrease in the indigenous population and the little interest of Europeans in these lands meant that they remained abandoned until the middle of the century XIX, when the colonization of Antioquia brought the cultivation of coffee.

During the colony and the first years of the Republic, the region was subject to the province of Popayán, in 1821 it became part of the department of Cauca; since 1857 it was part of the Sovereign State of Cauca. In 1905 it was annexed to the department of Caldas and in 1966 it was created as an independent department with its capital in Pereira.

As a consequence of the civil wars experienced during the 19th century, a large number of families from Antioquia emigrated south with the idea of founding new towns and creating trade routes with the states of Cundinamarca and Cauca. This process was called "Colonization of Antioquia". During this period the vast majority of the department's municipalities were founded. After 1880, the cultivation of coffee gained strength and reduced the base of the economy of corn, beans and plantains, opening doors to a more entrepreneurial and more articulated activity in the market.

Calle Real de Santuario, architectural vestige of the antioque colonization.

Since the creation of the Granada Confederation in 1858, the idea of creating a new department to the south of the Sovereign State of Antioquia was raised; however the idea was not welcomed. He proposed it again in 1888 under the name of "Departamento de Sur" with Manizales as its capital. Later, in the Conservative Regeneration, Rafael Uribe Uribe, widely supported by Aquilino Villegas and Daniel Gutiérrez Arango, proposed the creation of the Department of Córdoba, also with its capital in Manizales. The name of Córdoba was intended to pay homage to the Antioquian hero. But Uribe Uribe was defeated with the opposition of the representations of Cauca, Antioquia and Cundinamarca, several ministers of the Office and the vast conservative majority of the National Constituent Assembly.

At the beginning of the XX century, the government of President Rafael Reyes, in order to weaken the hegemony of the ancient Sovereign States, proposed the creation of several departments, including the "Department of Los Andes" with its capital in Manizales. When it was decided to create the department, there was a disagreement in the Congress of the Republic: the people of Antioquia wanted to call the department Córdoba in honor of the hero of independence, José María Córdova, however, the Caucas, owners of the other part of the territory, wanted to name him after the wise naturalist, Francisco José de Caldas, a condition that was imposed by Cauca to contribute the other half of the new department.

Once the limits were defined, the department would occupy a part of Antioquia and another part of Cauca in equal parts, 50 percent each, according to the provisions of Law 17 of said year:

Territorial formation of the Old Caldas between 1905 and 1912.

The department of Caldas among the departments of Antioquia and Cauca, whose territory will be defined as this: the river Arma from its birth to the river Cauca; this upstream to the ravine of Arquia, which is the limit of the province of Marmato. The provinces of Robledo and Marmato will be included within the Department of Caldas, due to the legal limits they have today, as well as the province of the South of the department of Antioch. The capital of this department will be the city of Manizales.

Bogotá, April 11, 1905. Push and run.

Rafael Reyes.

Later, in 1908, the current Quindío was annexed to said administrative unit, which at that time was Cauca territory. Caldas finally ends up being a department with more than 65% of its territory made up of territory that was from Cauca.

Around 1920, a phenomenon occurred that contributed to the formation of coffee farms, cattle ranches, and sugar mills, and was the culmination of the colonizing process or the end of free territories to be colonized by landless peasants.

The department of Risaralda was created by the Colombian Congress in 1966. It was the result of a process of political and social mobilization mainly led by regional elites and that led to the fragmentation of the old Old Caldas. The campaign for the The creation of the department was stimulated by an amalgam of discourses that emphasized peasant identity, the economic, social, and cultural relations of Pereira (which would be the future capital) with the municipalities of western Caldas, likewise, political and regarding the neglect by Manizales (capital of Old Caldas) in investment and infrastructure issues, while Pereira was the city that assumed the leadership of these municipalities. The discourses on decentralization arose as the hope that with the department of Risaralda there would be a more equitable distribution of resources, which would irrigate the most neglected municipalities and villages.

The media, especially the press, were in charge of legitimizing and promoting all these speeches promoted by the Pro-Risaralda Board, headed by Gonzalo Vallejo Restrepo. Precisely for this purpose, the newspaper El Diario de Risaralda was created, as the main forum for separatist ideas and the main means of controversy with La Patria (the Manizales newspaper).

Geography

Physical map of the department of Risaralda, with their respective municipalities and main rivers

The department covers an area of 4,140 km². The department is made up of a central area of slightly undulating topography at an elevation of 980m in the municipality of La Virginia. This area is bordered by the Central and Western mountain ranges, the Central one exceeds 4,500m in the snow-capped mountains of Santa Isabel and Quindío and the Western reaches 4,000m in Cerro Tatama; the two mountain ranges are separated by the Cauca River canyon. (see Physical map of the department)

Life zones

Map of living areas according to the Holdridge classification for the department of Risaralda.

According to the classification of life zones, proposed by Leslie Holdrige, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in a joint effort with the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Risaralda (CARDER), prepared the cartography that compiles the 12 life zones of the department of Risaralda, however it should be noted that the tropical dry forest (BST) areas categorized by the Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt in 2014 do not appear.

Municipalities

Pereira

Apology

Balboa

Bethlehem of Umbría

Two broken

Gua

The Celia

Virginia

Marseille

Mistrató

Pueblo Rico

Quinchía

Santa Rosade Cabal

Sanctuary

Demographics

Evolution of the population of the department of Risaralda (1973-2023)

Population by census.Population by projection.Source: Statoids. DANE.

Ethnography

• Mestizos & Blancos (92.05%)
• Black or Afro-Colombian (5.07%)
• Amerindians or Indigenous (2.88%)
• Gypsies (0.00%)

According to preliminary data from the 2005 census, its population is 859,666 inhabitants, of which 665,104 correspond to the municipal capitals and 194,562 to the rural sector, of which 418,236 are men and 441,430 women, grouped into 231,592 households that inhabited 231,780 homes.

• Preliminary Population Data Census 2005. Source: DANE

The department's population density, estimated for the year 2000, is 258.5 inhabitants per km². The sub-region with the lowest population density index is the one that corresponds to Mistrató and Pueblo Rico. This result may be due to the lack of penetration routes and the low quality and availability of services of all kinds. The highest population density is presented by the municipalities of Dosquebradas, La Virginia and Pereira.

Symbols

Flag

The fourteen (14) silver stars represent the fourteen municipalities of the Department. The green background represents the fertility of its lands and the agricultural vocation of its people.

Shield

The field of blue symbolizes, of the elements, the air; of human qualities, loyalty; from the jeweler, the sapphire; of feelings, love; of the planets, Venus; of metals, the steel that says progress; from the plant world, the poplar and from the flora, the violet; of the animal kingdom especially the peacock. This color says royalty, majesty, beauty, serenity. Blue in arms manifests kindness and benevolence, respect and equity, justice and order.

Bees are a universal symbol of industriousness, work, industry, and commerce. Its gold metal symbolizes the jeweler, the topaz; of the stars, the sun; from the elements, fire, from the plant kingdom, the cypress; of the flowers, the sunflower; of the birds, the rooster; of the quadrupeds, the lion; of the fish, the dolphin. In the order of moral attributes it means wealth, strength, faith, vitality, strength, purity, constancy. Its use obliges to do good to the poor and defend the legal order.

The curtained barracks, that is, tablecloth, makes the general meaning of the shield more dynamic, since the apex of the triangle is a symbol of height and improvement.

The central canton, with an unequal triangular shape, offers its field in sinople (green) and symbolizes the earth and, in its manifestations, agriculture; of the virtues, hope; of minerals, the emerald; of the planets. Mercury, who is the winged messenger, of the vegetable kingdom, the laurel and the evergreen; of the animal kingdom, the parrot. It means in its all freedom and abundance. Its use obliges to help the farmers and in general the development of agriculture, as well as the orphans and poor who are oppressed.

As a symbol it carries a stylized pineapple in metal, gold. She can be taken as the strength of the new efforts for the diversification of the agricultural industry, which she has found in Risaralda and particularly, in the capital city of her notable increase, making her system a model for the rest of the country.

The remaining cantons, right and left, go on a field of gold. Each one of them, descending and parallel to the legs that curtain the barracks, offer a segment of coffee, which are in their natural color. They are a symbol of a basic industry of the residents of the Department, which at the same time is that of the country in general, as a source of wealth, foreign currency and agricultural development.

The support, which is called a cartouche, is not part of the shield itself. Its use is simply due to the fact that because it is a shield that cannot be stamped with honorable pieces, according to the reasons previously exposed, it is usually used to create majesty to the coat of arms. Strength if it is colored with ocher or brown tones, which of course are properly heraldic enamels.

Department Anthem

Economy

The economic activities of the department are agriculture, livestock, industry, commerce and in recent years, metallurgy, fuel production (fuel alcohol). In agricultural products, the production of coffee, sugar cane, banana, cassava, cocoa, pineapple, guava, potato, corn, cotton and some fruit trees stands out. Livestock has dairy and meat purposes. Industrial production is concentrated in food, beverages, textiles, paper and coal. The trade is located mainly in the capital Pereira. In five municipalities of the department there are effects on the economy as a result of the illegal mining that is carried out in them: Pueblo Rico, Santa Rosa de Cabal, Quinchía, Guática and Mistrató.

Music and dance

Risaralda is one of the departments with the greatest musical richness. Being part of the Andean region, rhythms such as Bambuco, Pasillo Lento, Salón y Fiestero, Dance, Guabina, Marcha, among others, predominate. Other of the most important musical variants of the Risaralda is the popular music called guasca, very popular in December. Genres of Antioquian origin such as Porro paisa, Rumba and Baile Bravo are also cultivated.

Next we will listen to an audio where 13 rhythms of great importance in the department are compiled.

In order: Ajena (Bambuco), I Miss You (Pasillo Lento), Mi Refugio (Dance), El Polvero (Rumba), El Presidente (Baile Bravo), Las Canas de la Abuela (Porro Antioqueño), Granada (March), El Pereirano (Party Hall), Vuelta a Colombia (Hall Hall), El Transistor (Parranda), El Rocker (Merengue Parrandero), El Fosforito (Porro Parrandero) and To Make the Good Night (Pasillo Parrandero).

Politics

The Departmental Assembly of Risaralda, together with the governor, govern the destinies of the department of Risaralda.

The Departmental Assembly is a popularly elected corporation, made up of 12 deputies, and they are elected every four years as public servants.

The governor is elected by popular election for a four-year term.

The mayors of each municipality are also popularly elected.

By tradition, in Risaralda the two political parties Liberal and Conservative had predominated for the elections. But, especially in the Central West Metropolitan Area, this trend has lost strength; bursting new collectivities such as the Democratic Center (Colombia), the Radical Change Party and the U Party.

Governors

Deputies

National Natural Parks

Central Cordillera

Natural National Park Los Nevados

Otún Quimbaya wildlife sanctuary

Western Cordillera

Tatama National Natural Park