page_title: Popayán
section_title: Colonial era
hierarchical_section_title: Popayán / History / Colonial era
caption_attribution_description: English: Colonial downtown of Popayán - Colombia Español: Centro Histórico y colonial de Popayán - Colombia
context_page_description: Popayán is the capital of the Colombian department of Cauca. It is located in southwestern Colombia between the Western Mountain Range and Central Mountain Range. It has a population of 318,059 people, an area of 483 km², is located 1760 meters above sea level, and has an average temperature of 18 °C.
  The town is well known for its colonial architecture and its contributions to Colombian cultural and political life. It is also known as the "white city" due to the color of most of the colonial buildings in the city center, where several churches are located, such as San Francisco, San José, Belén, Santo Domingo, San Agustín, and the Catedral Basílica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, known locally as "La Catedral". The city's cathedral was home to the Crown of the Andes, a 16th-century Marianist devotional object featuring emeralds taken from the captured Inca Emperor Atahualpa. It was sold to finance local health care institutions.
  Popayán has been home to seventeen Colombian presidents, as well as noted poets, painters, and composers.
context_section_description: No records exist of the pre-Hispanic history of the indigenous village of Popayán, but on 13 January 1537 the Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar arrived in Popayán. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Popayán was administered by an appointed governor under the jurisdiction of the Royal Audience of Quito.
  Popayán was a very important town during the colonial period because of its location between Lima, Quito and Cartagena. Even after the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, Popayán remained a transfer point for gold and other riches going to Cartagena on their way to Spain. Popayán also served as a colonial mine, and produced various denominations of gold escudo coins and silver reales from 1760 through 1819; it continued producing coinage for the new Republic of Colombia after 1826. 
  The city is the home of an ancient pre-Hispanic pyramid known as El Morro del Tulcán, already abandoned when the first Spanish arrived. Analyses of dental samples have revealed that individuals buried there probably belonged to the upper class of their society.
  Popayán has been destroyed by several earthquakes. The most recent and destructive lasted eighteen seconds and occurred on 31 March 1983. The reconstruction of the colonial city took more than ten years and today it is still possible to see some lots that have not been rebuilt. The first earthquake seismic design code was established in Colombia as a consequence of this earthquake.
caption: Popayán downtown
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