American Capital of Culture - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

American Capitals of Culture
Year	City	Country
2011	São Luís
2011	Quito Quito San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
2010	Santo Domingo Santo Domingo Santo Domingo, known officially as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city in the Dominican Republic. Its metropolitan population was 2,084,852 in 2003, and estimated at 3,294,385 in 2010. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River...
2009	Asunción Asunción Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...
2008	Brasilia Brasília Brasília is the capital city of Brazil. The name is commonly spelled Brasilia in English. The city and its District are located in the Central-West region of the country, along a plateau known as Planalto Central. It has a population of about 2,557,000 as of the 2008 IBGE estimate, making it the...
2007	Cuzco Cusco Cusco , often spelled Cuzco , is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region as well as the Cuzco Province. In 2007, the city had a population of 358,935 which was triple the figure of 20 years ago...
2006	Cordoba Córdoba, Argentina Córdoba is a city located near the geographical center of Argentina, in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas on the Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina after the federal capital Buenos Aires, with...
2005	Guadalajara Guadalajara, Jalisco Guadalajara is the capital of the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the seat of the municipality of Guadalajara. The city is located in the central region of Jalisco in the western-pacific area of Mexico. With a population of 1,564,514 it is Mexico's second most populous municipality...
2004	Santiago
2003	Panama City Panama City Panama is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Panama. It has a population of 880,691, with a total metro population of 1,272,672, and it is located at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the province of the same name. The city is the political and administrative center of the...
2003	Curitiba Curitiba Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...
2002	Maceió Maceió Maceió is the capital and the largest city of the coastal state Alagoas, Brazil. The name "maceió" is of Indian origin, and designates the natural spontaneously courses of water which flow out of the soil...
2001	Iquique Iquique Iquique is a port city and commune in northern Chile, capital of both the Iquique Province and Tarapacá Region. It lies on the Pacific coast, west of the Atacama Desert and the Pampa del Tamarugal. It had a population of 216,419 as of the 2002 census...
2000	Mérida Mérida, Yucatán Mérida is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Yucatán and the Yucatán Peninsula. It is located in the northwest part of the state, about from the Gulf of Mexico coast...

The non-governmental organization

Non-governmental organization

A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

American Capital of Culture Organization selects one city in the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

annually to serve as the American Capital of Culture for a period of one year. The organization claims the initiative is based closely on the European Capital of Culture

European Capital of Culture

The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by theEuropean Union for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong European dimension....

program; it enjoys the backing of the hemisphere-wide Organization of American States

Organization of American States

The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...

, but the OAS is not involved in the selection process.

History and Objectives

The American Capital of Culture initiative was born in 1997 and is aimed at all the countries of the Americas.

It has three major objectives:

to be an instrument of Inter-American integration in the cultural sphere,
to contribute to the peoples of the American continent knowing each other better, respecting its national and regional diversity, as well as highlighting their shared cultural heritage;
and to promote the cities nominated as the American Capital of Culture in the American hemisphere and in the rest of the world, at the same time as building new bridges of cooperation with the other continents which have established cultural capitals.

The initiative was devised and is promoted by the American Capital of Culture Organization, a body set up in 1997, with the objective of promoting the American Capital of Culture and other, complementary cultural initiatives, which help to use culture as a key element in the development of the countries of the Americas.

Any territory of the countries of the American continent that wish to develop the objectives of the American Capital of Culture may apply to be chosen as American Capital of Culture.

“Territory” is deemed to be any physical area that has a political, geographical, administrative or historic unity. By way of example, territories could be cities, regions, provinces, states, nations, etc.

For the official presentation of the application, it is mandatory to complete all the sections of the Application Form, in any of the following four languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese or French.

History and Objectives

See also