Aburra

The Aburrá Valley lies between the mountain slopes of the Central Cordillera, along the Medellín River. Its Indigenous inhabitants included the Aburrá and neighbouring peoples, who cultivated maize, beans and cotton and worked gold. The valley runs from south to north, its floor enclosed by steep hills and connected to the wider Cauca and Magdalena basins.

In 1541 Jerónimo Luis Tejelo entered the valley during Jorge Robledo’s expedition. Spanish settlement later grew near the meeting of the Medellín River and the Santa Elena stream. A royal decree of 1674 authorised the establishment of a villa, and the Villa de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Medellín was founded the following year. The new town became a centre of colonial settlement in a valley whose Indigenous communities had already been deeply affected by conquest.