Baños is a parish located to the south west in the canton Cuenca, province of Azuay, Ecuador. The parish has an area of 327.3 km
2 and the altitude varies from 2050 to 4200 meters above sea level, with an average temperature of 14°C. It is located in the foothills of the mountain range of
El Cajas, surrounded by high-altitude areas as: Chanchán, Nero, Yanasacha, Sunsún and Huasiloma. According to the Ecuador census of 2010 had a total population of 16,8611 inhabitants that correspond to 3.33% of the total population of the canton Cuenca.
History
Baños as remote human settlement to the pre-colonial period, due to the existence of natural resources such as thermal waters, so it should be populated by the Cañaris. At the beginning of the seventeenth century in the colonial era, after being conquered by Spaniards who exploited gold and silver mines in the area, intermarriage between the colonizers and the native population and the purchase and sale of land started, which made possible the population growth and the division of sectors in the parish. In the republican era, in 1824, Baños was inferred as a rural parish in the city of Cuenca, but it was not until September 1, 1852, that it became legally legalized as a rural parish of the Cuenca canton.
Geography
The town of Baños is located just 8 kilometres southwest of the city of
Cuenca. It borders
San Joaquín parish to the north,
Tarqui and
Victoria del Portete to the south,
San Gerardo,
Chumblín and
San Fernando and
Zhaglli to the east, and with
Chaucha to the west.
Baños covers an area of 327.3 km
2, which accounts for 10.6 percent of the total area of the canton of Cuenca.
Education and health
The parish has 18 public educational establishments, of which 8 correspond to high school, 8 to elementary school and the 2 remaining to secondary education. These institutions are located in the parish center, Nero, Minas, Narancay Alto, Huizhil, Narancay Bajo and Misicata.
Baños belongs to District No. 2 and receives public health services at the Carlos Elizalde Center, which provides medical, dental and psychological consultations, as well as prenatal, delivery and postpartum care.
Economy
The economy of the parish is based around retailing and tourism which accounts for most of the population, followed by agriculture and livestock which accounts for 24 per cent of the population, manufacturing industries (18%) and construction industries (17%).
The main crops include
maize
Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...
,
beans
A bean is the seed of some plants in the legume family (Fabaceae) used as a vegetable for human consumption or animal feed. The seeds are often preserved through drying (a ''pulse''), but fresh beans are also sold. Dried beans are tradition ...
,
potatoes
The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...
and other vegetables.
Clothes and furniture are amongst the most common products manufactured in Baños. The service sector provides jobs in the accommodation and restaurant services, transport and shops to cater for tourists visiting Cuenca and the surrounding canton.
However, unemployment is a problem within the parish and led to 936 people migrating from the parish between November 1996 and 2001, mostly to the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.
Between 2005 and 2009 the provincial government of Azuay Province invested US $1,650,000 in public works in the parish, including road infrastructure, educational facilities, sanitation, and socio-economic projects, some of them being water development schemes.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banos, Azuay
Populated places in Azuay Province
Parishes of Ecuador
Populated places established in the 17th century