Chiquinquirá 6.41

Chiquinquirá is a town and municipality in the Colombian Department of Boyacá, part of the subregion of the Western Boyacá Province. Located some 115 km north of Bogotá, Chiquinquirá is 2556m above sea level and has a yearly average temperatureEtymologyThe name Chiquinquirá comes from Chibcha and means "Place of swamps covered with fog".Geography and religionChiquinquirá is constituted by two zones: the urban zone or town which is formed by approximately 40 neighbourhoods between the strata 1 and 4, and the rural zone which is divided in 17 sub zones located around the city.It is home to the Basílica de Chiquinquirá, which houses the image of the Virgen de Chiquinquirá, the patroness saint of Colombia. Chiquinquirá is a major point of religious pilgrimage (source: Colombia Lonely Planet Guide, 2nd Edition, 1995).HistoryThe area of Chiquinquirá used to be inhabited by the Muisca before the Spanish conquest and Chiquiquinrá was an important place in the Chiquinquirá Valley. It was ruled by an independent cacique within the Muisca Confederation. It was never properly founded as a municipality.In November, 1967, 81 people in Chiquinquirá, most of them children, were fatally poisoned and hundreds more became seriously ill after eating bread that had been made with flour that had been contaminated with a powdered insecticide.