Cajamarca is a town and municipality in the
Tolima Department of
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
. The population of the municipality was 17,309 as of the 2018 census.
The municipality has two populated centres, the town centre of Cajamarca and the locality of Anaime. It is located along the
Pan-American Highway
The Pan-American Highway (french: (Auto)route panaméricaine/transaméricaine; pt, Rodovia/Auto-estrada Pan-americana; es, Autopista/Carretera/Ruta Panamericana) is a network of roads stretching across the Americas and measuring about in to ...
.
In 1886, colonisers from
Antioquia colonised the area currently known as Anaime, and started to develop the land for agriculture. In 1913, the Bishop of Ibagué Ismael Perdomo bought the land of the municipality and officially founded the municipality of Cajamarca, which stands for 'cold land' in
Quechua
Quechua may refer to:
*Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru
*Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language
**So ...
.
The main economic activity is agriculture, and the town is also known as the 'agricultural larder' of Colombia.
[El Tiempo. 1997. "Cajamarca despensa agrícola del Tolima." ''El Tiempo'', 21 May. https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-600830]
Internationally, the town is best known as the location of the La Colosa gold mining project of
AngloGold Ashanti
AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a global gold mining company. It was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. It is now a global gold producer with 21 operations on four continents. The company is listed ...
.
References
Municipalities of Tolima Department
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