Fontibon
Encyclopedia
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...
located at the westernmost side of Bogotá, 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...
.
History
Founded on May 10, 1954; Fontibon was the gate to the current Bogotá City also known as Santa Fe de Bogotá, to the conquistadorConquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...
Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in Colombia. He explored the northern part of South America. While successful in many of his exploits, acquiring massive amounts of gold and emeralds, he ended his career disastrously; and has been suggested as a possible model...
and his fellow expeditioners.
The origin of the city's name can be traced to the indigenous
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
leader "Cacique Huintiva" (meaning powerful cacique) and the mutation of the word to its present spelling, being this among other names such as Ontibon and Hontibon.
The city was cradle to the residence of Peter Claver
Peter Claver
Peter Claver was a Jesuit who, due to his life and work, became the patron saint of slaves, Colombia and African Americans...
. Little by little the community became one of the most idolizing and religious. The city started to expand, and in the sixteenth century it was divided into 22 "capitanias".
Fontibon's original map
Map
A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
s constitute one of Colombia's oldest documents.
In the year 1956, Fontibon was merged with Bogota, losing its status as "associate town".
Transportation
The city is still far away from Bogota's major mass transport system - the TransMilenioTransMilenio
TransMilenio is a bus rapid transit system that serves Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. The system opened to the public in December 2000, covering Av. Caracas and Calle 80...
.
Fontibon's main highway leads to Medellín
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...
.