Astrea is a municipality and town of the

Department of Cesar Cesar Department (), or simply Cesar, () is a department of Colombia located in the north of the country in the Caribbean region, bordering to the north with the Department of La Guajira, to the west with the Department of Magdalena and Depar ...

in northern

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 ...

. Government of Cesar: Astrea

Geography

The municipality of Astrea limits to the north with the municipality of

El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

and northwest with

Magdalena Department Magdalena () is a Departments of Colombia, department of Colombia, located in the north of the country by the Caribbean Sea, with more than 1.3 million people. The capital of the Magdalena Department is Santa Marta and was named after the Mag ...

; to the south with the municipality of Chiriguana. It has an extension of 580 km². The average temperature throughout the year is 30 °C. The region is part of the geological Zambrano formation, formed in the

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

presenting a gray-greenish

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

History

Founded by a farmer named Martín Mier Batista in 1936 when a group of farmers from the

arrived seeking better pastures. After the creation of the Department of Cesar in 1964, Astrea became a corregimiento of the municipality of Chimichagua. On November 26, 1984, Astrea segregated from Chimichagua and became a municipality of the Department of Cesar by Ordinance 013 of 1984. Cesar 30 Años de Progreso - Gobernación del Cesar (1997). -Page 21-]

Politics

Administrative divisions

;Corregimientos * Arjona * San Pedro * Santa Cecilia * El Vallito

Economy

Ranching A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often applied to li ...

and

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

are the main economic activity in the region having the town of Astrea as the main urban center of the municipality. Agricultural products are commercialized in the town such as;

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, from Brazil, Paraguay and parts of the Andes. Although a perennia ...

sesame Sesame (; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a plant in the genus '' Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for ...

corn Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout Poaceae, grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago ...

and

common bean ''Phaseolus vulgaris'', the common bean,, is a herbaceous annual plant grown worldwide for its edible dry seeds or green bean, green, unripe pods. Its leaf is also occasionally used as a Leaf vegetable, vegetable and the straw as fodder. Its Pla ...

among others.

Culture

Astrea celebrates the ''Día de San Antonio de Pádua'' ( Saint Anthony of Pádua) Day in the corregimiento of Arjona, every year on June 16. Astrea also celebrates a traditional feast honoring the ''Día de San Martín'' (

St. Martin's Day Saint Martin's Day or Martinmas (obsolete: Martlemas), and historically called Old Halloween or All Hallows Eve, is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours and is celebrated in the liturgical year on 11 November. In the Middle Ages and early mod ...

) every November 11.

References

External links

Government of Cesar Department: Astrea

Astrea official website

Departamento Nacional de Estadistica - Astrea.
{{Municipalities Cesar Department Municipalities of Cesar Department