Zipaquirá

Zipaquirá (sipakiˈɾa) is a municipality and city of Colombia in the department of Cundinamarca. Its neighboring municipalities are Cogua and Nemocón to the north; Tocancipá to the east; Tabio, Cajicá and Sopó to the south; and Subachoque and Pacho to the west. Its seat of municipal government is 49 kilometers from the national capital Bogotá. It is part of the Greater Bogotá Metropolitan Area, and is the capital of the Sabana Centro province. It is also the headquarters of the diocese of the same name and that includes much of the Department of Cundinamarca, extending to the centre of Bogotá, the region of Rionegro, the Ubaté Valley, and the region of Guavio. The city is primarily known for its Salt Cathedral, an underground church built inside a salt mine in a tunnel made as result of the excavation of the salinas. Zipaquirá has an original architecture, and the old city centre is a tourist attraction. Its main square is surrounded by old buildings in the Spanish Colonial style. This small city can be reached by train from Bogotá. In Chibcha, the language of the Muisca, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense before the Spanish conquest, the name means "The Land of the zipa". Zipa was the ruler of this territory. Another origin is "City of our father". Altiplano Cundiboyacense#PrehistoryHerrera Period and Muisca Confederation In the Abra Valley between Zipaquirá and Tocancipá were found some of the most ancient human remains of South America. The lithic strata reveal animal bones and carbon fragments, analysed with carbon 14 dating to be around 12,500 years old, which makes it the oldest evidence of human settlement on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense. There are two possible origins of its name. One of them is taken from the indigenous people who inhabited the foot of the Zippa mountain range, "Chicaquicha", which means "our large wall" or according to other sources, "city of our father", and until the 19th century the name was written beginning with the letter C.