Baba

Baba lies in the river-fed lowlands inland from the Gulf of Guayaquil. Its fertile basin became one of the principal cacao-growing areas supplying Guayaquil during the colonial period. Baba was made a colonial partido in 1707, alongside places such as Daule and Babahoyo. In the later eighteenth century the expansion of cacao exports tied its plantations ever more closely to trade through the port downstream.