Gama is a municipality and town 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 ...

in the

Guavio Province The Guavio Province () is one of the 15 provinces in the Cundinamarca department, Colombia. Guavio borders the Capital District of Bogotá and the Central Savanna Province to the west, to the north the Almeidas Province, to the east the Boyac� ...

, part of the department of Cundinamarca. The urban centre of Gama is situated at an altitude of in the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team that currently competes in the Talent League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. History Inaugural playing squad (1992) Honours *Premiers (2): 2002, 2013 *Runners-up (6): 199 ...

of the Colombian

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

. Gama, at from the capital

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city, capital and largest city ...

, borders

Gachetá Gachetá, Cundinamarca is a municipality and town of Colombia, capital of the Guavio Province, part of the department of Cundinamarca. The urban centre of Gachetá is situated at an altitude of in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The ...

in the north, Junín and

Gachalá Gachalá is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Guavio Province, part of the department of Cundinamarca. The urban centre of Gachalá is situated at a distance of from the capital Bogotá at an altitude of in the Eastern Ranges of the ...

in the south,

Ubalá Ubalá is a municipality and town of Colombia in the department of Cundinamarca. It is located in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. It is the only municipality of Cundinamarca that is split in two parts. Climate Etymology In the C ...

in the east and Junín in the west.Official website Gama
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Etymology

Gama is derived either from Muysccubun meaning "our back", or from the language of the local Chío tribe; "behind the licked hill", referring to the

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

Guatavita Guatavita is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Guavio Province of the department of Cundinamarca. Guatavita is located 75 km northeast of the capital Bogotá. It borders Sesquilé and Machetá in the north, Gachetá and Junín ...

behind the mountains to the northwest.

History

Before the

Spanish conquest of the Muisca The Spanish conquest of the Muisca took place from 1537 to 1540. The Muisca people, Muisca were the inhabitants of the central Andes, Andean highlands of Colombia before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. They were organised in a loose M ...

, Gama was inhabited by a tribe called the Chío. The first registration of the village was made in 1846, when the church in

was constructed. Gama was properly founded not earlier than 1903, by Juan Martín Romero.

Economy

Main economical activity in Gama is agriculture, with predominantly

potato 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 ...

es,

bean 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 traditi ...

pea Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum' ...

s and

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 ...

cultivated. Other products include

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 ...

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a Tropical vegetation, tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been culti ...

s and

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 ...

References

{{Municipalities cundinamarca department Municipalities of Cundinamarca Department Populated places established in 1903 1903 establishments in Colombia