Cajamarca is a town and municipality in the
Tolima Department
Tolima () is one of the 32 departments of Colombia, located in the Andean region, in the center-west of the country. It is bordered on the north and the west by the department of Caldas; on the east by the department of Cundinamarca; on the ...
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 17,309 as of the 2018 census.
The municipality has two populated centres, the town centre of Cajamarca and the locality of Anaime. It is located along the
Pan-American Highway
The Pan-American Highway is a vast network of roads that stretches about 30,000 kilometers (about 19,000 miles) from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in the northernmost part of North America to Ushuaia, Argentina, at the southern tip of South America. I ...
.
In 1886, colonisers from
Antioquia colonised the area currently known as Anaime, and started to develop the land for agriculture. In 1913, the Bishop of Ibagué Ismael Perdomo bought the land of the municipality and officially founded the municipality of Cajamarca, which stands for 'cold land' in
Quechua
Quechua may refer to:
*Quechua people, several Indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru
*Quechuan languages, an Indigenous South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language ...
.
The main economic activity is agriculture, and the town is also known as the 'agricultural larder' of Colombia.
[El Tiempo. 1997. "Cajamarca despensa agrícola del Tolima." ''El Tiempo'', 21 May. https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-600830]
Internationally, the town is best known as the location of the La Colosa gold mining project of
AngloGold Ashanti
AngloGold Ashanti Limited is a South African gold mining company, with global operations. With a diverse portfolio of cooperation, projects, and exploration activities, AngloGold Ashanti was formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the ...
.
Climate
References
Municipalities of Tolima Department
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