San Mateo is a town and municipality in the

Northern Boyacá Province The Northern Boyacá Province is a Provinces of Colombia, province of the Colombian Departments of Colombia, Department of Boyacá Department, Boyacá. The province is formed by 9 Municipalities of Colombia, municipalities. Municipalities Boavit ...

, part of the

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 ...

n department of Boyacá. The urban centre is located 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 ...

. San Mateo borders Guacamayas, Panqueba and El Cocuy in the east,

Boavita Boavita is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Northern Boyacá Province. The urban centre of Boavita is situated in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes at an altitude of and a dist ...

in the west, Macaravita, Santander in the north and

La Uvita La Uvita is a town and municipality in the Northern Boyacá Province, part of the Colombian Department of Boyacá. The urban centre is located at an altitude of in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. La Uvita borders San Mateo in the nor ...

in the south.Official website San Mateo
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Etymology

Before 1914, San Mateo was called La Capilla. It received its present name honouring the San Mateo field, where Antonio Ricaurte, hero of the

Independence of Colombia Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or Sovereign state, state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is ...

died for the fatherland.

History

The history of San Mateo is not well documented. The foundation of the town has been attributed by Ramón Correa to

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

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 ...

Antonio Caballero y Góngora on September 21, 1773, while Caballero was working in

Córdoba, Spain Córdoba ( ; ), or sometimes Cordova ( ), is a city in Andalusia, Spain, and the capital of the Province of Córdoba (Spain), province of Córdoba. It is the third most populated Municipalities in Spain, municipality in Andalusia. The city prim ...

.Biografía Antonio Caballero y Góngora
/ref> Little data exists in the archives for the tumultuous period of civil wars of the republican era. The symbol of San Mateo is the typical Colombian fruit chirimoya.

Economy

The economy of San Mateo is centered around

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 ...

with

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,

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 ...

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 ...

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

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' ...

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 ...

as main products cultivated. The municipality also has livestock farming and mining activities of sand, gravel and

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

Born in San Mateo

* Luis Espinosa, former professional cyclist * Gregorio Ladino, former professional cyclist

Gallery

File:San Mateo Boyacá Parque.JPG, Central square File:San Mateo parque.JPG, Central square and church File:San Mateo carbon.JPG, Carbon mining File:San Mateo ganaderia.JPG, Livestock farming File:San Mateo alrededores.JPG, Landscape around San Mateo

References

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:San Mateo, Boyaca Municipalities of Boyacá Department Populated places established in 1773 1773 establishments in the Spanish Empire