Arboletes is a town and municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 in the subregion of Urabá in Antioquia Department

Antioquia Department

Antioquia is one of the 32 departments of Colombia, located in the central northwestern part of Colombia with a narrow section that borders the Caribbean Sea. Most of its territory is mountainous with some valleys, much of which is part of the Andes mountain range...

, Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

.

The municipality is bounded by the Caribbean Sea

Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....

 to the north, the department of Córdoba to the north and east, the municipality of San Pedro de Urabá to the south and west, and the municipalities of Turbo and Necoclí. The town is 502 km from the city of Medellin

Medellín

Medellín , officially the Municipio de Medellín or Municipality of Medellín, is the second largest city in Colombia. It is in the Aburrá Valley, one of the more northerly of the Andes in South America. It has a population of 2.3 million...

, capital of the department of Antioquia . The municipality covers an area of 710 km².

Arboletes has 8 rural townships (corregimientos): El Carmelo, La Trinidad, Naranjitas, El Guadual, La Candelaria, Buenos Aires, Las Platas and Pajillal.

Place Name

The name "Arboletes" means "land of trees", though this is purely historical. Almost all forests in the area were cleared for a thriving cattle industry, an activity on which the municipality depends. However, there are wilderness areas in the municipality, formed by the rain forests that gave rise to the name of the municipality.

History

Arboletes is now a municipality of the department of Antioquia, born of a land dispute between that department and its neighboring department of Córdoba.

The town of Arboletes was founded in 1920 by José Torres Vargas y José María Reales, and was a township (corregimiento) of the municipality of Turbo, Antioquia. The municipality of Arboletes was established in August 1958.

Economy

Arboletes is primarily a livestock region, and ranching occupies 90% of the land of the municipality. Cattle, swine, goats, and horses are raised in the area. Agriculture in the area includes Bananas, Yams, Cassava, Maize, Rice, and Fruit.

Mud Volcano

Arboletes has a mud volcano

Mud volcano

The term mud volcano or mud dome are used to refer to formations created by geo-excreted liquids and gases, although there are several different processes which may cause such activity. Hot water mixes with mud and surface deposits. Mud volcanoes are associated with subduction zones and about 700...

located in the Santa Fe de la Plata corregimiento. The mud volcano has had eruptions in 2006 and 2010. The mud density allows people to float and swim on the surface. This place is visited by tourists from around the world and is renowned for its medicinal benefits.