Falan 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 ...

. Falan was founded before 1539, by the Guandecas and Pomponáes tribes. It was discovered by

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

Baltazar Maldonado in 1539. The population of the municipality was 17,251 as of the 1993 census. The total area of the municipality is 238 km². Most workers work in

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

although some do

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

. The altitude is 930 meters above sea level. Falan was originally inhabited only by indigenous inhabitants. In the middle of the 16th century, Spanish

conquistadors Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...

first came across Falan. Spanish settlers came in the mid 18th century, seeking to extract silver and gold from the nearby mines, they called the community Rosario de Lajas. A nearby mine that much ore was brought out of was named Santa Ana, and soon the community began to be called by that name. In 1930, the municipality changed its name once again to Falan, in honor of the poet Diego Fallón Carrión who had been born in the region. The local economy of Falan, produces coffee, cacao, yucca, maize, panelera cane, banana, and fruits. In addition, wood is harvested throughout the municipality.

External links

(Crwflags.com)
Municipalities of Tolima Department 1539 establishments in the Spanish Empire {{Tolima-geo-stub