Sébaco is a town and a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the

Matagalpa Matagalpa () is a city in Nicaragua which is the capital of the department of Matagalpa. The city has a population of 112,697 (2022 estimate), while the population of the department is 606,643. Matagalpa is Nicaragua's seventh largest city, the ...

department of

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

. Situated at the junction of 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 ...

and the Rio Grande de Matagalpa, Sébaco is the largest city of the

agricultural 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 f ...

Sébaco Valley, one of the most fertile areas in Nicaragua. From Sébaco, vegetable fields extend beyond the horizon when looking west. Five kilometres north of the city, a highway branches east from the Pan-American towards the city of

King Charles I of Spain Charles V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (as Charles I) from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy (as Charles II) ...

named the area "The Very Noble City of Sébaco" by decree. In 2006 the National Assembly of Nicaragua officially named the city Sébaco. The name Sébaco originates from the

Nawat Nawat (academically Pipil, also known as Nahuat) is a Nahuan languages, Nahuan language native to Central America. It is the southernmost extant member of the Uto-Aztecan languages, Uto-Aztecan family. Before Spanish colonization of the Americas ...

language that the

Nicarao people The Nicarao are an Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous Nahua people who live in western Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica. They are the southernmost Nahua group located in southern Mesoamerica. They spoke the Nahuat language, Nahuat ...

spoke who still inhabit the Sébaco Valley. It derives from Siwakuat, which means snake woman. Cihuacoatl was also the Aztec goddess of fertility and agriculture. When the Spanish arrived in the area, they were unable to pronounce the original name of this town, and due to their Tlaxcalan interpreters speaking

Nahuatl Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

, it was wrongly documented and over time the pronunciation became Sébaco.

Limits

It is bordered to the north by the municipalities of La Trinidad and Jinotega, to the south by the municipalities of Ciudad Darío and Terrabona, to the east by the municipality of Matagalpa and to the west by the municipality of San Isidro.

Climate

External links

*
Guide on Sébaco

References

Municipalities of the Matagalpa Department Valleys of North America Landforms of Nicaragua {{Nicaragua-geo-stub