Villavicencio is a city

City

A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

 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 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...

, capital of the Department of Meta

Meta Department

Meta is a department of Colombia. It is close to the geographic center of the country, to the east of the Andean mountains. A large portion of the department, which is also crossed by the Meta River, is covered by a grassland plain known as the Llanos. Its capital is Villavicencio...

, with 361,058 inhabitants. (2005 census) The city is located at 4°08S, 73°40W, 75 km (about 45 m) southeast of the Colombian capital city of Bogotá

Bogotá

Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

 (DC) by the Guatiquía river. It is also known colloquially as "Villavo".

Lying in a rural zone of tropical climate, Villavicencio is on the great Colombian-Venezuelan plain called Los Llanos

Llanos

The Llanos is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the Flooded grasslands and savannas Biome....

, which is situated to the east of the Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

 mountains. Villavicencio is also called "La Puerta al Llano," or "The Gate to the Llanos," due to its location on the historical path from the Colombian interior to the vast savanna

Savanna

A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...

s that lie between the Andes range and the Amazon rainforest

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

.

Villavicencio's proximity to huge mountains and great plains make the city an example of Colombia's geodiversity

Geodiversity

Geodiversity is the variety of earth materials, forms and processes that constitute and shape the Earth, either the whole or a specific part of it. Relevant materials include minerals, rocks, sediments, fossils, soils and water. Forms may comprise folds, faults, landforms and other expressions of...

. Because it is located in the foothills of the Andes, the morning and evening breezes cool the city that is very hot for most of the day.

History

The German Conquistador

Conquistador

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...

 Nikolaus Federmann

Nikolaus Federmann

Nikolaus Federmann was a German adventurer and conquistador in the colonies of Venezuela and Colombia. He worked in the service of the Welser brothers.- Life :...

 reached the altiplano

Altiplano

The Altiplano , in west-central South America, where the Andes are at their widest, is the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth outside of Tibet...

 of Bogotá in 1536 by approaching it from the plains of Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

, a large unsettled area that is formed by the Orinoco basin

Orinoco

The Orinoco is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes called the Orinoquia, covers , with 76.3% of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia...

. However, this vast area, remained unexplored and uncolonized for the next 300 years. Colombia was settled along the mountainous folds of the Magdalena

Magdalena River

The Magdalena River is the principal river of Colombia, flowing northward about through the western half of the country. It takes its name from the biblical figure Mary Magdalene. It is navigable through much of its lower reaches, in spite of the shifting sand bars at the mouth of its delta, as...

 and Cauca

Cauca River

The Cauca River is a river in Colombia that lies between the Occidental and Central cordilleras. Born in southwestern Colombia near the city of Popayán, it joins the Magdalena River near Pinillos in Bolívar Department, and the combined river eventually flows out into the Caribbean Sea. It has a...

 valleys, and all of its commerce with the outside world was oriented towards 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....

, thus, because of its geographical barriers, the extreme heat, and inhospitable climate, the Llanos remained forgotten and unsettled.

The Llanero

Llanero

A llanero is a Venezuelan or Colombian herder. The name is taken from the Llanos grasslands occupying western Venezuela and eastern Colombia. The Llanero were originally part Spanish and Indian and have a strong culture including a distinctive form of music.During the wars of independence,...

s, the inhabitants of the plains, were fierce horsemen who first fought for the Spanish royalists and then for the Venezuelan and Colombian rebels during the war of Independence. By crossing the Cordillera Oriental with Bolívar, they surprised the royalist army on the plateau of Tunja

Tunja

Tunja is a city and municipality located in the central part of Colombia, in the region of "Alto Chicomocha". As of the 2005 Census it had 152,419 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Department of Boyacá and part of the subregion of the Central Boyacá Province. It is approximately 145 km...

 and cleared the way for the taking of Santa Fe de Bogotá in August 1819.

In the 1840s, some farmers from Caqueza

Caqueza

Caqueza is a municipality and town of Colombia in the department of Cundinamarca....

, a town on the eastern folds of Bogotá started the modern settlement of Gramalote, which officially became the parish of Villavicencio in 1855. The parish was named for Antonio Villavicencio

Antonio Villavicencio

Antonio Villavicencio y Verástegui was a Neogranadine Lieutenant statesman and soldier, born in Quito, and educated in Spain. He served in the Battle of Trafalgar as an office in the Spanish Navy...

, a patriot in the Colombian war of independence

Patria Boba

The period between 1810 and 1816 in the New Kingdom of Granada was marked by such intense conflicts over the nature of the new government or governments that it became known as la Patria Boba . Constant fighting between federalists and centralists gave rise to a prolonged period of instability...

. Vaccines, a mule road, and the availability of vast areas of free land, drove new colonizers to continue the settlement of Villavicencio. As the roads improved the access to the Llanos, the farmers could send their produce and cattle to the markets of Bogotá.

After the assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister and Labor Minister , mayor of Bogotá and one of the most charismatic leaders of the Liberal Party.He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off...

, a popular Liberal

Colombian Liberal Party

The Colombian Liberal Party is a center-left party in Colombia that adheres to social democracy and social liberalism.The Party was founded in 1848 and, together with the Colombian Conservative Party, subsequently became one of the two main political forces in the country for over a century.After...

 politician in 1948, the large landowners saw a pretext to drive farmers out of their lands. The Llaneros resisted by driving the army out of population centers. The guerrillas never took Villavicencio, but they brought the fighting to the military base of Apiay. As the fighting between the government and the Llanero guerrillas was out of control, a military coup in June 1953, took Gustavo Rojas Pinilla

Gustavo Rojas Pinilla

Gustavo Rojas Pinilla was a Colombian politician, military officer, General of the Army and President of Colombia between 1953 and 1957.- Biographic data :...

 to power who immediately negotiated a cease fire and amnesty for the insurgents.

1948-present

Since 1948 when a period of violence erupted against countryside farmers, thousands of people who had have been displaced by wealthy landowners with the help of the army and police from their lands in other parts of Colombia moved to Villavicencio seeking a promised land, una tierra de promision, a refuge from socialist and right wing groups, and even the army and police. The International Committee of the Red Cross

International Committee of the Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...

 (ICRC) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , also known as The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to...

 have brought so assistance to these displaced people, which presently numbered over 100,000 displaced persons. The displaced roam the neighborhood looking for subsistence.Villavicencio has grown from a small settlement of no more than 20 people in the 1850s to an uncontrolled and uneven settlement of over 400,000 inhabitants in 2010. A new road of bridges and tunnels has shortened the driving time to Bogotá from six or four hours, depending on the season of the year, to one and half hours to move the oil, cattle, and agricultural products faster.

Geography and climate

The climate is hot and sometimes humid, though its proximity to the foothills of the Oriental Andes brings mild breezes to the city at nightfall. Average temperatures is 27 degrees Celsius.

The city is located in the Orinoquia Region, where the Oriental Plains begin. Most of the city's land is flat
ground draining away from the Andes. The Guatiquia borders the city to the north and east. Caqueza and Chipaque are located northwest of Villavicencio. A true portal to the Llanos, the roads south of Villavo lead to Acacias and San Martin, the first historical town of the LLanos, which was an early Jesuit settlement. East of Villavo they point towards Apiay, Puerto Lopez and the fluvial port of Orocue on the Meta river, a strong affluent of the Orinoco.

Economy

Cattle

Cattle

Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...

, agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

, and the exportation of crude oil fuel the Villavicencio economy. Beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

 and soap

Soap

In chemistry, soap is a salt of a fatty acid.IUPAC. "" Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. . Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford . XML on-line corrected version: created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN...

 are manufactured in Villavicencio. Imports from the surrounding area include coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, banana

Banana

Banana is the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they produce. Bananas come in a variety of sizes and colors when ripe, including yellow, purple, and red....

s, and rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

.

Sports

The city has a football (soccer)

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 team, the Centauros Villavicencio

Centauros Villavicencio

Corporación Deportiva Centauros Villavicencio, is a Colombian football club based in the city of Villavicencio. The club was founded January 14, 2003 and plays its home games at the Manuel Calle Lombana stadium, which has a capacity of 15,000 seats.-History:...

which plays in Colombia's second division.