Qantas

History

Bogotá, called Bacatá by the natives Chibcha, was the center of their civilization before the Spanish conquest and sheltered an important population.

The European colony was founded in 1538 by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and was named Santa Fe of Bogotá according to the name of the birthplace of the founder, Santa Fe. In 1717, Bogotá became the capital of the viceroyalty of the Nouvelle Grenade, which included/understood also current the Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. Bogotá, just like Lima and Mexico City, became one of main cities on the American continent for the Spanish administration. Usually called Santa Fe jusqu `with L `independence, renamed Bogotá very runs at this time.

July 20th 1810, the inhabitants of Bogotá founded the first representative assembly to defy the Spanish authority, after the cry of independence which was done in the principal place of the city.

After the independence of Colombia and the foundation of the Large Colombia in 1819, Bogotá becomes its capital.

In 1881 the first railway line connects Bogotá to Facatativá and in 1884 the first Tramway Hippomobile is built to the district of Chapinero. It is replaced by the electric tram in 1910.

April 9th 1948 the liberal policy Jorge Eliécer Gaitán is assassinated in Bogotá; that causes riots of a violence unchained under the name of “Bogotazo”.

During the XXe century, the population of Bogotá increases considerably thanks to the massive arrival of inhabitants of the Campagne fleeing the Violence.

Geography

Bogotá is at an altitude of 2640 meters above the sea level, in the Eastern Cordillera of the mountains of the north of the the Andes; it is located on a plate, with the foot D `an assembly line of which the most famous hills S `call Guadalupe and Monserrate, on the peaks of which two imposing churches are located.

Several small rivers, whose San Francisco, cross the city until the south-western end of the plate, and form the Rio Funza or Bogotá, which plunges finally at the edge of the plate to Tequendama, in one of most important tourist attractions of Bogotá: a splendid perpendicular water fall, about 145 meters. The climate is soft and moderate, the annual average temperature is approximately 14 °C, and important precipitations, approximately 1100 mm (with Paris, the annual total is approximately 600 mm).

The city has a checkerboard plan or hippodamien with many will square (which occurred directed North-South) with the intersections of the holds (streets, directed East-West). It comprises many parks and gardens, of which the park Simon Bolívar - not to confuse with the Plaza de Bolívar, where several important public edifices and churches are located.

Bogotá is connected by road to the coasts Pacifique and Atlantique of Colombia, respectively in north and the west, like at the two other major cities of Colombia. The Pan-American Highway and the highway Simón Bolívar cross the city.

A railway crosses the city of north to the south. It is used in an anecdotic way for the carriage of goods and tourism. The tourist train is with vapor and proposes a one half-day walk in the neighborhoods of the city.

Public transport

The town of Bogotá comprises two complementary grid systems public.

The principal network, the TransMilenio is a modern network of buses articulated in exclusive right of way whose many express train allow a fast displacement. This transport system, famous for its safety and criticized for its complexity, goes back to 2001, transports nearly 1.400.000 travellers per day, and takes as a starting point the public transport of Curitiba. It is articulated mainly around the Caracas Avenue, but there are other lines around L´avenue Suba, street 80 and L´autoroute of the north, which is an extension of l´avenue Caracas. A new development is envisaged around the 7th Avenue, and also of street 26, to connect l´aéroport international to the downtown area.

The district distributers are composed of many lines of more decayed buses (called buseta , colectivo or ejecutivo according to their size).

At the air level, the town of Bogotá has two principal airports:

the International airport El Dorado, its larger commercial airport, located in the district of Fontibón. It opened in 1959. All the commercial flights use this terminal.
regional L´Aéroport of Guaymaral, It is primarily used for the private flights and of the police force.

Culture

Bogotá is for a long time a center artistic, cultural and university major of the north of the South America. Sometimes called the Athens of South America .

Universities

The city shelters several excellent universities, of which the National university Of Colombia, Universidad of los the Andes (1948), Universidad Javeriana (founded in 1622), the university of Santo Tomás (founded in 1580) and the university Externado de Colombia (1899).

Museums

One also finds in Bogotá

the Musée of the Gold which has the vastest world collection of objects worked out of gold précolombien S,
Put It of Moneda in which are exposed many Latin-American works, an enormous quantity of paintings, sculptures and objects Colombian including one large collection of Botero offered by itself, but still some works (in particular much of drawings) traditional European painters including family members Brueghel, and then especially a rich person together of tables and sculptures of the largest modern European artists, all are there or almost: Monet, Sisley, El Salvador Dalí, Bacon, Ernst, Beckmann, Picasso…
Enfin the National museum is largest of Colombia. Y is summarized any L `history of the country and are presented grinds objects D `art as well précolombiens as colonial, modern and contemporary; the room devoted to Botero is equipped with the collection D `works of this painter probably most interesting, since it absolutely recalls all its artistic life since L `time even where he did not paint yet the bulky forms which are its trademark.
a museum of natural history (devoted partly to South American explorations of Alexander von Humboldt), a planetarium,
the splendid Museum D `Colonial Art decorated D `an admirable cloister and several galleries of Modern art.

Places of Bogotá

Bogotains painters

Shine Fernando Pinzón

Twinnings

The town of Bogotá has 22 twin towns:

See too

References

Random links:

Lanuéjols (Lozere) | Olimps Riga | Gastrodiscoides hominis | Onoghour | Louise Augusta de Bade