Zipaquirá

In the Abra Valley between Zipaquirá and Tocancipá were found some of the most ancient human remains of South America. The lithic strata reveal animal bones and carbon fragments, analysed with carbon 14 dating to be around 12,500 years old, which makes it the oldest evidence of human settlement on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense.

There are two possible origins of its name. One of them is taken from the indigenous people who inhabited the foot of the Zippa mountain range, "Chicaquicha", which means "our large wall" or according to other sources, "city of our father", and until the 19th century the name was written beginning with the letter C. The other possibility refers to the name "zipa", a title conferred to the governor of the village and to his wife, the latter known by the title of "Quira", and thus "Zipa-Quirá". The native people who lived there settled in the upper part of the mine called "Puebla Viejo", now known as Santiago Pérez, approximately 200 meters above the present site of the city, and where early Spanish descriptions (1537) speak of "seeing a few hundred dwellings with a population of 12,000 people".

These lands were part of the domain of the zipa of Bacatá, the leader of the southern part of the Muisca. This area of the Bogotá plain had at that time a series of small lakes and canyons which made possible the transportation of its inhabitants by canoe, by means of which the inhabitants of Nemocón, Gachancipá, and Tocancipá reached Chicaquicha in order to seek supplies of salt which they traded for pottery and tiles. Salt was also traded with peoples throughout the Andean region of Colombia, including the Panche, and Pantágora in the present department of Tolima, and the Muzo of the present-day department of Boyacá.

On July 18, 1600, Don oidor Luis Henríquez established a settlement on the site with workers and their families, and named it the "Village of Zipaquirá".

On August 2, 1600, Henríquez contracted Juan de Robles to construct the Church of Zipaquirá, which was later reconstructed by Pedro de Tovar y Buendía, when the parish priest was Fernando de Buenaventura y Castillo.

In 1605 the area was named the Corregimiento de Zipaquirá and removed to its original location; this was done due to the limited area available on the originally occupied plain, as well as to the fact that the Spanish forces ordered that no Spanish, negros, mestizos or mulattos were permitted to live in native villages, even if they had purchased land therein.

In 1623, the Spanish official Don Francisco de Sosa named as wards the 321 native inhabitants in the "Old Town", according to the declaration of Alfredo Tinoco.

On October 5, 1638, Gabriel de Carvajal became the guardian of 771 natives in the region and 125 in Tibitó.

In 1778, by order of the Viceroy Manuel Antonio Flórez, the natives who lived in Zipaquirá were transported to Nemocón in order to prevent constant rebellions of previous owners of the salt deposits.

On August 3, 1779, Zipaquirá saw the creation of the Holy Trinity and San Antonio de Padua parish.

In 1852, Zipaquirá became a province, retaining the status until 1855.

During the Spanish reconquest, on August 3, 1816, the so-called Zipaquirá Martyrs were executed in the city square.

With the Constitution of Cundinamarca of 1815, the city became the capital of the province of the same name. On July 10, 1863, it was designated the capital of the Sovereign State of Cundinamarca, although subsequently it was named Funza by decree of president Morales. Law number 46 of April 29, 1905, created the Department of Quesada, the capital of which was Zipaquirá, which remained so until 1910.

• Egan Bernal (born in Bogotá, 1997–), cyclist; winner of 2019 Tour de France[4]
• Gustavo Petro Urrego (1960–), member of the political arm of M-19, former congressman and senator; mayor of Bogotá (2012-2015); president of Colombia (2022-2026)
• Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014), writer and Nobel laureate

• Espejo Olaya, Maria Bernarda (1999). Notas sobre toponimia en algunas coplas colombianas [Notes about toponomy of some Colombian ballads - Thesaurus] (PDF) (in Spanish). Vol. Tomo LIV, Núm. 3. pp. 1102–1157.
• Groot, Ana María (2014) [2008]. Sal y poder en el altiplano de Bogotá, 1537-1640 (in Spanish). Universidad Nacional de Colombia. pp. 1–174. ISBN 978-958-719-046-5.