Upar

Upar lies in the valley of the Cesar River between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serranía del Perijá, in the northern Colombian interior. The valley takes its name from an Indigenous leader remembered as Cacique Upar. It formed part of a varied landscape in which mountain streams descend to the warmer plains and the Cesar flows south towards the Magdalena basin.

In 1550 the Spaniard Hernando de Santana founded a town called Los Santos Reyes del Valle de Upar. The settlement took its name from the feast of the Three Kings and the local chief. A parish was established in 1560, and the town became a centre for Spanish settlement in the valley, within reach of both the Caribbean coast and the mountains.