Calvas

Calvas occupies the southern edge of Loja Province in Ecuador, where the highlands meet the border with Peru. Paltas and Gonzanamá lie to the north, Quilanga and Espíndola to the east, and Sozoranga to the west. The district stretches across valleys, slopes and high ground at an average altitude of about 1,932 metres, in the southern mountain country of Ecuador, where the relief creates distinct settings for settlement and cultivation. Ahuaca Hill, a granite cone rising to about 2,463 metres and formed by two peaks, stands above Cariamanga, the main town, beside a spring.

Before the Spanish, this was the land of the Paltas and the Calvas, who were conquered by the Incas after hard fighting. The Incas valued the district for its mild climate, abundant springs and streams, and the roads that crossed it. In the sixteenth century the Spaniards gathered the people into a mission town, a pueblo de indios, where tribute and labour service could be collected, and Cariamanga became the seat of the Province of Calvas within the Corregimiento of Loja. Early in the seventeenth century, as the local population fell sharply, Cañari families were brought in to supply labour for the mita and the haciendas. By the end of the eighteenth century the place was called the Villa de Cariamanga, and in 1824 the Gran Colombia law of territorial division created the canton of Cariamanga.