Líbano is a town and municipality in the Tolima department of

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

. The population of the municipality was estimated at 36,231 as of 2020. Along with

Honda commonly known as just Honda, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in October 1946 by Soichiro Honda, Honda has bee ...

, Líbano is the seat of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Líbano–Honda The Roman Catholic Diocese of Líbano–Honda () is a diocese located in northern Tolima Department in Colombia, with sees in the cities of Líbano, Tolima, Líbano and Honda, Tolima, Honda in the ecclesiastical province of List of Roman Catholic ...

History

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Panches, Pantagoras, Bledos, and Marquetones lived in the region. They were among the tribes most feared by the

Muisca The Muisca (also called the Chibcha) are indigenous peoples in Colombia and were a Pre-Columbian culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The Muisca spe ...

. Their society was an aristocratic hierarchy headed by a chief. By the mid-nineteenth century, settlers from Antioquia explored south in search of vacant land, and mines, to be acquired by degrees of effort and incorporated into the national economy. A caravan of Antioqueños led by Isidro Parra, found a valley planted with cedars and oaks, and constructed a few huts. The hamlet was named Líbano, the Spanish word for Lebanon. The layout of the built-up area of Líbano was organized as a village in 1886. Since 1900, Líbano developed as an important village, pushing dirt roads in all directions. Socio-economic development of the region was guided by its founders from the development of mining and power to the cultivation of coffee, which has become the main characteristic element of the economy, society and culture of the area. The city of Líbano is the see of the Diocese of Líbano-Honda, created by Pope John Paul II on July 26, 1989, by the Bull "Ita Iam." The territorial area of the diocese covers an area of 3,477 km ² with approximately 240,000 inhabitants. Its first bishop was Monsignor José Luis Serna Alzate, who took office on October 7, 1989. On 5 December 2015, José Luis Henao Cadavid was installed as the fourth bishop of the diocese.

Geography

The municipality of Líbano is located in the north of the department of Tolima, about north of Ibagué, the departmental capital. Líbano is bordered to the north by the municipalities of Armero and Villahermosa, to the West by the municipality of Murillo, to the East by the municipality of Lérida and to the south by Santa Isabel and Venadillo. Líbano is located in the

Cordillera Central Central Cordillera refers to the New Guinea Highlands. Cordillera Central, meaning ''central range'' in Spanish, may refer to the following mountain ranges: * Cordillera Central, Andes (disambiguation), several mountain ranges in South America ** ...

, east of

Nevado del Ruiz Nevado del Ruiz (), also known as La Mesa de Herveo () is a volcano on the border of the departments of Caldas and Tolima in Colombia, being the highest point of both. It is located about west of the capital city Bogotá. It is a stratovolca ...

. The town is at an altitude of above sea level, putting it in the

tierra templada Tierra templada (Spanish for ''temperate land'') is a pseudo-climatological term used in Latin America to refer to places which are either located in the tropics at a moderately high elevation or are marginally outside the astronomical tropics, prod ...

, or temperate zone, of Colombia. The area is hilly and heavily forested where it is not used for agriculture. Agriculture in the area includes growing of

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

, bananas, plantains, and beans.

History

El Libano is a historic coffee producing municipality in Tolima. There, there are 77 villages and 3,980 families that make their living by planting coffee. His production has also been recognized in various competitions such as the Master of Coffee Colombia, where the farmer Ómar Arango was recognized for the high quality of his coffee in 2019. Also, the specialty coffees that come out of this municipality are exported to countries such as China, Japan, Korea, the United States, Spain, and England, among others. In addition, it could be said that this is the municipality with the longest coffee history in Tolima, In the 1900s it had threshing machines that were headquarters of important companies in Europe, they were called “threshers”.

History

Geography

History

Notable people

Climate

References