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e Department of Antioquia's GDP and 11% of theeconomy of Colombia.[5] Medelln is important to the region for its universities, academies, commerce, industry, science, health services, flower-growing, festivals and nightlife.

In February 2013, the Urban Land Institute chose Medelln as the most innovative city in the world due to its recent advances in politics, education and social development.[6] In the same year, Medelln was announced as the preferred corporate business destination in South America, and won the Vernica Rudge Urbanism Award conferred by Harvard University to the Urban Development Enterprise, mainly due to the North-Western Integral Development Project in the city.[7] In September

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2013, the United Nations ratified Colombia's petition to host UN-Habitat's 7th World Urban Forum[8] in Medelln, from April 511, 2014.[9]

The most recent survey on the global status of the Smart Cities by Indra Sistemascatalogs Medelln as one of the best cities to live in South America, sharing the first place with Santiago de Chile, and alongside Barcelona and Lisbon in Europe.[10]

Contents

[hide]

1 Toponymy 2 History

o 2.1 Spanish discovery of the valley o 2.2 Growth of the town

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o 2.3 During the Spanish colonial period

o 2.4 Industrial revolution o 2.5 Trade in Medelln o 2.6 Art in the early 20th century o 2.7 Growth in second half of 20th

century o 2.8 Today

3 Geography and climate 4 Administrative divisions

o 4.1 Zones 5 Law and government

o 5.1 Local development state o 5.2 Crime

6 Economy o 6.1 Gross domestic product o 6.2 Medelln Cluster o 6.3 Unemployment and poverty

7 Urban development o 7.1 Comprehensive urban projects o 7.2 Library Parks

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o 7.3 Public housing o 7.4 Architecture o 7.5 Parks o 7.6 Plazas and plazuelas

8 Health 9 Education 10 Transportation

o 10.1 Air transportation o 10.2 Land transportation

11 Demography o 11.1 Ethnicities

12 Culture o 12.1 Paisa culture o 12.2 Festivals and events o 12.3 Museums and other venues o 12.4 Cuisine o 12.5 Libraries

13 Sports and recreation o 13.1 Hosting o 13.2 Cycling and BMX

14 Symbols

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o 14.1 Coat of arms o 14.2 Flag o 14.3 Anthem

15 International relations o 15.1 Twin towns Sister cities o 15.2 Other forms of city partnership

16 Gallery 17 References 18 External links

Toponymy[edit]

The valley and its Spanish settlement have gone by several names over the years, including "Aburr de los Yameses", "Valley of Saint Bartholomew", "Saint Lawrence of Aburr", "Saint Lawrence of An", "Villa de la Candelaria de Medelln", and finally "Medelln".[11]

The name "Medelln" comes from Medelln, Spain, a small village

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in the Badajozprovince of Extremadura. The village is known for being the birthplace of Hernn Corts. The Spanish Medelln, in turn, was originally called "Metellinum" and was named after the Roman General Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius in 75 BC who founded the village as a military base.[12]

Some of the Conquistadors, such as Gaspar de Rodas, the first governor of Antioquia, came from the region of Badajoz. Count Pedro Portocarrero y Luna, President of the Council for the West Indies (Consejo de Indias), asked the Spanish monarchy to give the name of his town, Medelln in Extremadura, to the new settlement in America. His request was accepted on November 22, 1674, when the Regent Mariana of Austria

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proclaimed the city's name to be Villa de Nuestra Seora de Medelln. Miguel Aguinaga y Mendiogoitia, Governor, made the name official on November 2, 1675. The Crown granted a coat of arms to the city on June 24, 1676.[12]

History[edit]

Spanish discovery of the valley[edit]

Portrait of Marshal Jorge Robledo

In August 1541, Marshal Jorge Robledo was in the place known today as Heliconia when he saw in the distance what he thought was a valley.

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He sent Jernimo Luis Tejelo to explore the territory, and during the night of August 23 Tejelo reached the plain of what is now Aburr Valley. The Spaniards gave it the name of "Valley of Saint Bartholomew", but this was soon changed for the native name Aburr, meaning "Painters", due to the textile decorations of the natives.[13]

In 1574, Gaspar de Rodas asked the Antioquia's Cabildo for four square miles (10 km2) of land to establish herds and a ranch in the valley. The Cabildo granted him three miles (4.8 km) of land.[13]

In 1616, the colonial visitor Francisco de Herrera y Campuzano founded a settlement with 80 Amerindians, naming it "Poblado de San Lorenzo," today "El Poblado Square". In 1646 a

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colonial law ordered the separation of Amerindians from mestizos andmulattos, so the colonial administration began the construction of a new town in An, today Berro Park, where the church of Nuestra Seora de la Candelaria de An ("Our Lady of Candelaria of An") was built. Three years later, the Spaniards started the construction of the Basilica of Our Lady of Candelaria, which was rebuilt at the end of the 18th century.[13]

Growth of the town[edit]

Metropolitan Cathedral of Medelln, declared a National Monument of Colombia on March 12, 1982.

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After 1574, with Gaspar de Rodas settled in the valley, population started to grow. According to the church records of the San Lorenzo Church, six couples married between 1646 and 1650, and 41 between 1671 and 1675.[13] Gold mines were developed northeast of Antioquia, and they needed a food supply from nearby agriculture. The Aburr Valley was in a strategic position between the gold mines and the first provincial capital of Antioquia, Santa Fe de Antioquia.[13]

The provincial capital, Santa Fe, started to lose importance and gradually became poor, as trade and prominent personalities of the region came to the Aburr Valley, where rich families started to buy land. Soon, the first settlers asked for the creation of

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a Cabildo (council) in the valley, thus getting a separate government from Santa Fe.[13] The Santa Fe government fought this, but Mariana of Austria signed the edict creating the Cabildo on November 22, 1674. The governor Miguel de Aguinaga proclaimed the royal edict on 2 November 1675. The new city was given the title of Villa de Nuestra Seora de la Candelaria It is the second largest city in Colombia .[13]

During the Spanish colonial period[edit]

Map of Medelln in 1791.

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Before the creation of the town, the inhabitants were scattered throughout the valley, with only a few families concentrated at the confluence of the An (today called theSanta Elena) and the Medelln rivers; others lived in El Poblado San Lorenzo. After the royal edict, the settlers chose the An site as the heart of the future city, with the Candelaria Church at its center.[citation needed]

Their first buildings were simple, with thatched roofs. The houses of the most important people were two stories tall, and the church and the Cabildo were unimpressive. It was only during the 18th century that the church was improved. Only one story, the Cabildo was located at the western part of the plaza. It had a thatched roof until 1742, when tiles were put

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on. In 1682, traders and foreigners started the construction of the Veracruz Hermitage, which was consecrated as a church by the Bishop of Popayn in 1712.[13]

San Ignacio Church, an example of colonial architecture in Colombia.

In 1675, the first census during colonial times was taken: there were 3,000 people and 280 families. Another census was not taken until the colonial Visitador (royal inspector)Antonio Mon y Velarde ordered one between 1786 and 1787: there were then 14,507

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people and 241 families. In 1808, two years before Colombia won independence, the city had 15,347 people and 360 families.[13]

In 1803, the Royal College of the Franciscans was founded in the Central Plaza, which is Berro Park today, with the initial departments of Grammar, Philosophy and Theology.[14]Soon after, the College moved to a new building in the small San Ignacio square. In 1821 it was renamed Colegio de Antioquia, and it became the University of Antioquia in 1901. The University also had the first vocational training school, the first cultural radio station in Latin America, and the first regional botanical garden.

Industrial revolution[edit]

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In the first half of the twentieth century, the population of Medelln increased sixfold, from 59,815 inhabitants in 1905 to 358,189 in 1951. The Thousand Days War (18991902) stopped the industrial development of the city, although the civil war did not affect the region directly. Under reforms by President Rafael Reyes after the conflict, the city continued its industrial development[13] and founded a Chamber of commerce. The Chamber developed a regional transport project that connected Medelln to other Colombian regions and other nations.

Despite the importance of gold production in the early development of Medelln, the export of coffee contributed the most impetus in the

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20th century for the city's growth. Trade grew to international dimensions as the main export of Colombia became coffee. The industrial and commercial dynamism of Medelln also created a caste of traders and entrepreneurs, who founded the first nationwide industries in Colombia.[13]

Trade in Medelln[edit]

Coltejer Building, the tallest building in Medelln.

Coltejer is one of the most important textile companies in Colombia. It was founded in Medelln by Alejandro

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Echavarra on October 22, 1907.[15] It's headquarters, theColtejer Building, is the tallest skyscraper in Medelln and the fourth tallest building in Colombia.

The discovery of coal in Amag, a few miles south of the Aburr Valley, and the building of hydroelectric plantsprovided the new industries with energy, and this allowed the creation of many smaller companies. The Antioquia Railway (built in 1875) conquered the difficult geography of one of the most mountainous regions of South America, notably with the La Quiebra Tunnel, which connected the industrial center to the Magdalena River, the most major navigable river in Colombia. In 1932 Medelln also built its first airport, the Enrique Olaya Herrera Airport.[13]

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The study by Charles H. Savage on industrial production in Antioquia between 1960 and 1972 showed how important Medelln industries became to Colombia and South America. He studied social change produced by the introduction of new technology. Savage looked at three factories in Antioquia: two potteries in Santuario and La Blanca, and a tailoring factory in Medelln. Savage studied the production of the Antioquian factories, and the relationship between the workers and their employers, an industrial efficiency which he called the "Culture of Work".[16] His conclusions were published by his colleague George F. Lombardi as Sons of the Machine (1988).[17][18]

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Art in the early 20th century[edit]

Arts and literature have been an important social element in Medelln. The University of Antioquia, the National University of Colombia with its Medelln branch, and thePontifical Bolivarian University have historically been the academic centers of the city and are responsible for the formation of an intellectual class in the region.

During the first part of the 20th century the city was part of the literary transition fromromanticism to the modern art and literary movements of the new century.[citation needed] The writer Toms Carrasquilla (18581940) focused on the people of his native Antioquia, portraying their daily lives and

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customs. The writer and philosopher Fernando Gonzlez from Envigado (in the metropolitan area of Medelln), the cartoonist Ricardo Rendn and the poet Len de Greiff were some of the founders of Los Panidas, a Medelln literary movement. Other featured poets and writers werePorfirio Barba-Jacob and Efe Gmez. In painting, the most famous were Eladio Vlezand Pedro Nel Gmez. Carlos Vieco Ortiz was a popular composer and musician. Medelln became the headquarters of record labels like Sonolux, Ondina and Silver.[13]

Medelln clubs, many of them dating to the end of the 19th century became a center for intellectual and industrialist movements, like the Club Union (founded in 1894) andClub

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Campestre (founded in 1924). In 1909 the Circo Espaa was created and Teatro Bolvar, in 1919. The beautiful Teatro Junn was demolished to build the Coltejer Tower. Cine Colombia, the first movie distributor of the country, was founded in Medelln in 1927.[13]

Growth in second half of 20th century[edit]

El Poblado, a wealthy southern district, is one of Colombia's most important urban and economic centers.

Colombia entered a new era of political instability with the murder of

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presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitn inBogot in 1948. Political violence spread in the rural areas of Colombia, and farmers fled to the cities.[19] The Valley slopes became overpopulated with slums.

As the population of Medelln grew quickly during the 1950s, industrialists, traders and local government created the "Medelln Master Plan" (MMP) (Plan Piloto), a plan for the expansion of the city into the Aburr Valley that would lead to the creation of the first metropolitan area in Colombia. Paul Lester Wiener and Jos Luis Sert were the architects who led the project. Among the main features of the MMP were the canalization of the Medelln River, the control of new settlements on valley slopes, the creation of an

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industrial zone in the Guayabal District, the planning of the city to be in harmony with the river, the construction of a city stadium, and an administrative center in La Alpujarra.[13]

In 1951 the city had 358,189 inhabitants, but 22 years later, in 1973, the population had tripled to 1,071,252.[20] The population explosion had several consequences for the MMP. The urban limits of the city grew to areas that were not contemplated in the MMP, so that Medelln now reached the urban areas of other cities of the Aburr Valley, like Envigado, Bello and Itag; the new Medelln settlers were poor families without enough credit to buy their own homes, so several neighborhoods were built beyond the

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MMP; several old downtown buildings were demolished to construct tall towers, offices, and avenues. The beautiful and traditional Junin Theatre along the Santa Elena was demolished to build the Coltejer Tower. The huge migration into Medelln provided workers for the expansion of textile factories, being modernized in this period,[13] but it also created new problems for the city: higher unemployment, lack of services for poor areas, urban violence in several districts, and collapse of any hope of a transport system.[citation needed]

Today[edit]

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Medelln skyline, to the west of the city.

The position of Medelln as the second industrial city in Colombia has been a main factor in overcoming its crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. The Metro de Medelln, a massive urban transport service, became the pride of the city, and so far the only sign of the Medelln Master Plan of the 1950s. The construction of the Plaza Mayor of Medelln, an international center for congresses and expositions, was designed to showcase

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the globalizedeconomy of Colombia to the world.

Social exclusion has eased due to the development of a transport infrastructure; the Metro, a new system of public buses, is being planned with the so-called "Metroplus", already inaugurated, and a network of chair-lifts in the poorest barrio communities called the "MetroCable".[3] Additionally, an electric escalator 1,260 feet long was inaugurated in Comuna 13, one of Medelln's poorest neighborhoods, on December 26, 2011, making it the first and only one of its kind in the world. Today's Medelln includes spaces for art, poetry, drama, the construction of public libraries, the foundation of new ecological parks, and the inclusion of

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people of the city in its development.[21]

The city administration has pursued policies that have been lauded by researchers at the Overseas Development Institute as helping pioneer a post-Washington consensus'local development state' model of economic development, see here.[3]

In 2012, Medelln was among 200 cities around the world, including New York and Tel Aviv, nominated for Most Innovative City of the Year due to a great advancement in public transportation, with more than 500,000 residents and visitors using its Metro train system each day; a public bike-share program; new facilities and landmarks, including the Espaa Library and a cultural center

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in Moravia; a large outdoor escalator the size of a 28-story building, enabling residents of the citys elevated Comuna 13 neighborhood to safely ride down the steep hillside; and a Metro system which reduces Medellns CO2 emissions by 175,000 tons each year.[22] Medelln has the biggest research-dedicated building in Colombia called University Research Building (Spanish: Sede de Investigacin Universitaria -SIU-)[23] a facility that concentrates the top research groups of the University of Antioquia.[24]

Geography and climate[edit]

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View of Medelln at night

Medelln, as a municipality, has an area of 382 km2 (147 sq mi). It has 16 comunas(districts), 5 corregimientos (townships), and 271 barrios. The metropolitan area of Medelln lies within the Aburr valley at an elevation of 1,500 meters (about 4921 feet) and is bisected by the Medelln River (also called Porce), which flows northward. North of the valley are the towns of Bello,Copacabana, Girardota and Barbosa. To the south of the valley lie Itag, Envigado,Sabaneta, La Estrella and Caldas.

Medelln features a tropical rainforest climate (Af), albeit a noticeably cooler version of this climate that borders closely on a subtropical highland climate (Cfb) and also on atropical

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monsoon climate (Am). Because Medelln is located at 5,000 ft (1,500 m)above sea level, its climate is not as hot as other cities located at the same latitude near the equator. Because of its altitude above sea level and privileged location in the Andes Range, Medelln's weather at times is more characteristic of a humid subtropical climate than that of a tropical climate. The city's average annual temperature is 22 C (72 F), and because of its proximity to the equator, its temperature is constant year round, with minimal temperature variations. Temperatures range from 15 to 30 C (59 to 86 F). Because of the pleasant springlike climate all year, Medelln is known as "La Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera" or "City of the Eternal Spring". However, as the city is located in a valley and

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many of its districts are on slopes, temperatures can be slightly cooler on the surrounding mountains.

[hide]Climate data for Medelln

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year

Average high C (F) 27.7

(81.9) 28

(82) 28

(82) 27.6

(81.7) 27.4

(81.3) 27.9

(82.2) 28.3

(82.9) 28.2

(82.8) 27.7

(81.9) 26.8

(80.2) 27

(81) 27.1

(80.8) 27.64

(81.72)

Average low C (F) 16.7

(62.1) 16.9

(62.4) 17.2 (63)

17.4 (63.3)

17.3 (63.1)

17 (63)

16.5 (61.7)

16.6 (61.9)

16.5 (61.7)

16.6 (61.9)

16.9 (62.4)

16.7 (62.1)

16.86 (62.38)

Record low C (F) 12.4

(54.3) 12.4

(54.3) 13

(55) 13.9 (57)

12.8 (55)

10.4 (50.7)

10 (50)

11.4 (52.5)

10.2 (50.4)

11.2 (52.2)

11.2 (52.2)

8 (46)

8 (46)

Rainfall mm (inches)

61.4 (2.417)

76.1 (2.996)

120.6 (4.748)

163.1 (6.421)

199.5 (7.854)

147.7 (5.815)

118.9 (4.681)

154 (6.06)

171.7 (6.76)

221 (8.7)

151.1 (5.949)

87.8 (3.457)

1,672.9 (65.858)

Avg.rainy days 12 13 17 21 24 18 16 20 22 25 21 15 224

Averagehumidity(%) 66 66 67 70 71 67 63 65 69 72 73 70 68.3

Mean monthlysunshine

hours 175.5 149 154.2 127.9 138.9 173 203.2 191.6 153.4 132.9 136.4 156.2 1,892.2

Source: INSTITUTO DE HIDROLOGIA METEOROLOGIA Y ESTUDIOS AMBIENTALES[25]

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Administrative divisions[edit]

Communes of Medelln

Corregimientos (townships, rural areas) of Medelln

Medelln is a city governed by a republican democratic system as stated in the Colombian Constitution of 1991, with decentralized government. Administration is shared by the Mayor of Medelln and the Municipal Council, both elected by popular vote.

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The municipality is made up of official departments (secretaras) including departments for social mobility, urban culture, social development, education, evaluation and control, government, resources, public works, administrative services, environment, women, and transportation. There are also many departments with a certain autonomy: theOlaya Herrera Airport, the Public Library (Biblioteca Pblica Piloto), the College of Antioquia (Colegio Mayor), the Urban Development Enterprise (EDU), the Public Service Enterprise (EEPPM), the Sport and Recreation Institute (INDER), the General Enterprises of Medelln (EEVVM), the Medelln Bus stations, the General Hospital of Medelln, the health service enterprise "Metrosalud", the Metropolitan Institute of Technology (ITM),

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the Metro de Medelln, the Department for the Administration of the Medelln parks (Metroparques) and Metroseguridad.

The city belongs to the Medelln Metropolitan Area, which is made up of ten municipalities. Medelln is divided into six zones and these are subdivided into 16communes. The neighborhoods and urban institutional areas make up the communes. More than 249 neighborhoods and five townships are part of the municipality of Medelln.

Zones[edit]

South-eastern: El Pobladocommunes.

South-western: Guayabal and Beln communes.

West-central: Laureles, La Amrica and San Javier communes.

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East-central: La Candelaria, Villa Hermosa and Buenos Aires communes.

North-western: Castilla, Doce de Octubre and Robledo communes.

North-eastern: Aranjuez, Manrique, Popular and Santa Cruz communes.

Corregimientos (townships): San Sebastin de Palmitas, San Cristbal, Altavista, San Antonio de Prado and Santa Elena.

Law and gove

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