The first Spaniards unloaded in the area during the years 1500 and 1501, the area was then occupied by many tribes belonging to the big family of the Caribbean.
In this mountainous and broken territory, one finds more than 70% of the production of gold of the country, and its population recognized like dynamics, creative, undertaking and determined, generates approximately 15% of the rough national product.

MEDELLIN
It is the principal arts centre of Colombia with 24 universities or colleges of higher education and 22.000 students.
Medellín is the second city in importance in Colombia after Santafé de Bogotá. Wedged in the Aburrá valley, with some 1500m of altitude, Medellín is the capital of the department of Antioquia, with nearly 2 million inhabitants and 3 million, if the metropolitan region is included.
The year 1616 sees its foundation by Jewish settlers, fleeing persecutions in Europe. They were not conquistadores but farmers. They cultivated them-even without the assistance of indigenous slaves, while seeking to isolate itself from fear of new persecutions and by supporting an autarkical development. The inhabitants of the area preserved still today these values of formerly, this innate direction of self-sufficiency and independence.
Medellín with the reputation of an energetic city, it is one of the economic centers most important of Colombia.
With the rise of the capacity of the narcotrafiquants in the Seventies and Eighties, and the appearance of the trust of Medellín, the reputation of violence of Medellín was then spread throughout the world like a powder trail. Finally in December 1993 the trust was dismantled, Medellín could finally breathe.
Medellín today is a relatively calm city, called “the city of the eternal spring” for his moderate climate whose average varies around 23°C.
Medellín is a modern city which does not have many tourist attractions if it is not its greenery, its flowers, its quality of life and some buildings and churches historical. The majority of the interesting sites being with the downtown area, it is possible to visit them with foot, El Centro being without danger during the day.
To see:
The museo of Antioquia presents the most important collection of works of Fernando Botero with 32 paintings and sculptures.
Basílica Metropolitana of Immaculada started in 1875 and inaugurated in 1931, by its gigantic dimension, it is classified seventh in the world and first in Latin America.
Cerro Nutibara is a mountain located in full center of Medellín which one regards as the cultural lung of the city. There is there an impregnable panoramic sight of all Valle de Aburrá. One finds an art gallery there just as a reproduction of an old village antioquieño.