Tenza () is a town and municipality in the subregion of the

Eastern Boyacá Province The Eastern Boyacá Province is a province of the Colombian Department of Boyacá. The province is formed by 8 municipalities. The Tenza Valley is located in the Eastern Boyacá Province. The province hosts the eastern belt containing rich emer ...

of the Colombian department Boyacá. Tenza borders

La Capilla La Capilla is a town and municipality in the Eastern Boyacá Province, part of the Colombian department of Boyacá. The urban centre is situated at an altitude of in the Tenza Valley. Borders * North with Úmbita and Pachavita * South wit ...

and

Pachavita Pachavita is a town and municipality in the Neira Province, part of the Colombian department of Boyacá. The urban centre is situated on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense at an altitude of and at a distance of from the department capital Tunja. Th ...

in the north, in the east the department of Cundinamarca, in the south with Sutatenza and in the east with

Garagoa Garagoa () is a town and municipality in Colombia, located in the Boyacá Department. It covers an area of 191.75 km2 and the urban centre is located at an altitude of above sea level. Parts of the municipality reach altitudes of . It is the ...

. The altitude of the municipality in the

Tenza Valley The Tenza Valley (Spanish: ''Valle de Tenza'') is an intermontane valley in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The valley stretches over the southeastern part of the department of Boyacá and the northeastern part of Cundinamarca. It ...

ranges from to .Official website Tenza
- accessed 07-05-2016

History

Tenza used to be inhabited by the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada who was looking for emeralds. The village was ruled by the '' cacique'' of Cora, loyal to the ''

zaque When the Spanish arrived in the central Colombian highlands, the region was organized into the Muisca Confederation, which had two rulers; the ''zipa'' was the ruler of the southern part and based in Muyquytá. The ''hoa'' was the ruler of the ...

'' of

Hunza Hunza may refer to: * Hunza, Iran * Hunza Valley, an area in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan ** Hunza (princely state), a former principality ** Hunza District, a recently established district ** Hunza River, a waterway ** Hunza Peak, a mou ...

. Modern Tenza was founded during the Spanish conquest of the Muisca by the Jiménez de Quesada, on June 24, Saint John's day, 1537. Tenza used to be called ''Tenazuca'', which in the

Chibcha language Chibcha, Mosca, Muisca, Muysca (*/ˈmɨska/), or Muysca de Bogotá, was a language spoken by the Muisca people of the Muisca Confederation, one of the many indigenous cultures of the Americas. The Muisca inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyace ...

of the Muisca means "going down at night".Etymology Tenza
- accessed 07-05-2016

Economy

Livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animal ...

farming is the most important activity. The

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 t ...

of Tenza is relatively modest with beans,

pea The pea is most commonly the small spherical seed or the seed-pod of the flowering plant species ''Pisum sativum''. Each pod contains several peas, which can be green or yellow. Botanically, pea pods are fruit, since they contain seeds and d ...

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

yuca ''Manihot esculenta'', commonly called cassava (), manioc, or yuca (among numerous regional names), is a woody shrub of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, native to South America. Although a perennial plant, cassava is extensively cultivated ...

, arracacha,

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

es, cucumbers and bananas. Some

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 ...

is executed in Tenza.

Born in Tenza

* Juan Morales, former professional cyclist

References

{{Coord, 5, 05, N, 73, 25, W, display=title, region:CO_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Municipalities of Boyacá Department