Medellin

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Medellín (disambiguation) .

Medellin
Coordinates	6 ° 15 ′  N , 75 ° 34 ′  W Coordinates: 6 ° 15 ′  N , 75 ° 34 ′  W
Symbols
coat of arms flag
Basic data
Country	Colombia
Department	Antioquia
height	1479 m
surface	380.6 km²
Residents	2,549,537 (2019)
Metropolitan area	3,952,494 (2019)
density	6698  Ew. / km²
founding	1675
Website	www.medellin.gov.co (Spanish)
politics
mayor	Daniel Quintero (2020-2023)
Others
Official structure	20 areas
Communities	16
Districts & Suburbs	249
Cornerstone	Las Cruces Nro. 6
El Poblado, Medellin's financial center

Medellín [ meðeˈʝin ] is the capital of the Antioquia department in Colombia . With more than 2.5 million inhabitants, Medellín is the second largest city and at the same time with 3.9 million inhabitants the second largest metropolitan region of Colombia after the capital Bogotá (as of 2019).

Medellín is currently changing. Formerly known for its drug cartel and the high crime rate, it has developed rapidly since then and was named the most innovative city in the world by the Wall Street Journal in 2012 . The “City of Eternal Spring”, as it is called due to its year-round sunny and warm climate, has increasingly developed into a showcase project for all of Latin America.

geography

The metropolitan area of ​​Medellín, officially called Área Metropolitana del Valle de Aburrá , comprises ten surrounding municipalities ( municipios ), over which the urban area of ​​Medellín extends de facto today.

Medellin is located in the Aburrá valley, a valley of the central mountain ridge of the operand in the northwestern Colombia, at an altitude of 1538  m . Medellín is therefore also called Capital de la Montaña , the capital of the mountains.

The metropolitan area of ​​Medellín consists of the following cities (from south to north):

• Caldas
• La Estrella
• Sabaneta
• Itagüí
• Envigado
• Medellin
• Bello
• Copacabana
• Girardota
• Barbosa

The city is famous for its gardens, flowers and the variety of orchids that are native there. That is why it has the nickname Capital de las Flores ("Capital of Flowers").

The district Sierra was 2005 documentary La Sierra devoted. It is about the young fighters of the Bloque Metro gang who try to defend their neighborhood in an internal armed conflict .

Administrative division of the city

Medellín is divided into 16 urban districts ( comunas ), 256 districts ( barrios ) and four rural areas ( corregimientos ). See the list of boroughs of Medellín .

climate

Locals also call Medellín Bella Villa or Capital de la Eterna Primavera , capital of the eternal spring, as temperatures rarely climb above 30 degrees or fall below 16 degrees. The annual average temperature is 22 degrees.

Plaza Botero

Medellin
Climate diagram
J F. M. A. M. J J A. S. O N D.     61   28 17th     76   28 17th     121   28 17th     163   28 17th     200   27 17th     148   28 17th     119   28 17th     154   28 17th     172   28 17th     221   27 17th     151   27 17th     88   27 17th Temperature in ° C ,  precipitation in mm Source: ideam.gov.co

Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Medellín Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Max. Temperature ( ° C ) 27.7 28.0 28.0 27.6 27.4 27.9 28.3 28.2 27.7 26.8 27.0 27.1 O 27.6 Min. Temperature (° C) 16.7 16.9 17.2 17.4 17.3 17.0 16.5 16.6 16.5 16.6 16.9 16.7 O 16.9 Temperature (° C) 21.9 22.1 22.1 22.0 21.8 22.4 22.5 22.4 21.8 21.1 21.2 21.4 O 21.9 Precipitation ( mm ) 61.4 76.1 120.6 163.1 199.5 147.7 118.9 154.0 171.7 221.0 151.1 87.8 Σ 1,672.9 Hours of sunshine ( h / d ) 5.7 5.3 5.0 4.3 4.5 5.6 6.6 6.2 5.0 4.3 4.6 5.0 O 5.2 Rainy days ( d ) 12 13 17th 21st 24 18th 16 20th 22nd 25th 21st 15th Σ 224 Humidity ( % ) 66 65 67 71 72 70 65 66 70 74 71 71 O 69 Source: ideam.gov.co

history

Spanish conquest of the valley

Marshal Jorge Robledo

In August 1541, Marshal Jorge Robledo was in the place now known as Heliconia when he looked in the distance and saw what he thought was a valley. He sent Jerónimo Luis Tejelo to explore the area, and on the night of August 23, Tejelo reached the plain of what is now the Aburrá Valley. The Spaniards named the valley "Valley of St. Bartholomew". However, due to the local textile decorations, this was soon changed to the local name Aburrá, which means “painter”.

In 1574 Gaspar de Rodas asked the cabildo Antioquias for ten square kilometers of land in order to establish cattle breeding in the valley and to build a farm. The cabildo granted him eight square kilometers of land.

In 1616 Francisco de Herrera y Campuzano founded a settlement with 80 indigenous people and called it Poblado de San Lorenzo, today "El Poblado". In 1646 a colonial law ordered the separation of indigenous peoples from mestizos and mulattos , so that the colonial administration began building a new town in Aná, today's Berrío Park , where the church of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Aná was built.

City growth

Medellín's importance and prosperity had its origins in the production of coffee since 1880 and its ever-increasing demand.

Edificio Coltejer Background

Medellin Cathedral, 1927

The industrialization of the area began at the end of the 19th century. However, the city did not develop into an important industrial center until the 1930s . In the 1980s , the city's public life suffered from the drug mafia of the Medellín Cartel , which played a leading role in the global cocaine trade .

The name of the city is also associated with the II General Assembly of the Latin American Episcopate from August 24th to September 6th, 1968, on which the Catholic Church of the subcontinent took a historic turn and declared itself an option for the poor . See Liberation Theology .

Most recently, the city administration upgraded the poorest parts of the city through architecturally demanding building programs, which earned the city the “ Most Innovative City of the Year” award from the Urban Land Institute .

population

The population of Medellín is largely made up of the descendants of Basque immigrants and Sephardic Jews . The inhabitants of the city call themselves medellinenses and those of the Antioquia department call themselves paisa .

Buildings

• Torre Coltejer
• Torre del Café

Culture and sights

Iglesia de San Ignacio. Medellin center

• The city center towering cathedral of the Archdiocese of Medellín is a neo-Romanesque loam - Basilica ; Construction began in 1890, completion and consecration in 1931. Your large three-manual romantic organ by the German organ builder Oskar Walcker from Ludwigsburg was restored in 2009/10 by the German organ building workshop Oberlinger with the support of the German government .
• In the Botanical Garden is the Orquideorama , a collection of orchids .
• In the Museum of Antioquia works by the artist Fernando Botero to see.
• The sculptor Rodrigo Arenas Betancur shows several sculptures in the city.
• The Museo Casa de la Memoria , opened in 2011, commemorates the drug and civil wars in Colombia since 1948.
• The longest escalator in the world was inaugurated on December 27, 2011 in the Comuna 13 San Javier district . It overcomes a height difference of the equivalent of 28 floors. It cost around 5 million euros.
• The Planetario Municipal Jesus Emilio Ramirez Gonzalez is the first computer-controlled planetarium in a South American city.
• The hip-hop group Sociedad FB7 was founded in Medellín.

Regular events / festivals

Medellin is known beyond the borders of Colombia for its festivals; these include:

• Feria de Flores (flower festival) annually in August
• Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín ( Medellín International Poetry Festival ) annually in summer since 1991
• Fiesta de Luz (Festival of Lights): At the Festival of Lights, the Medellin River is illuminated with millions of lights every year at Christmas time

Sports

Atanasio Girardot Stadium during a game at the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

• Medellín has hosted a half marathon every September since 1995 .
• With Independiente Medellín and Atlético Nacional , Medellín has two football teams that play in Primera A.
• In 2010 the South American Games took place in Medellín.

Economy and Infrastructure

Crossroads on Avenida del Ferrocarril

In the city there are companies in the textile industry , clothing, the food and tobacco industry , the manufacture of agricultural machinery, the metallurgical and chemical industry, cement manufacture , the furniture industry and other branches of industry. Medellín now ranks second in terms of national industrial production and first in South America in terms of textile production. In the meantime, however, a very broad tertiary sector has developed alongside industry. Another economic mainstay is flower production. Orchids are mainly grown for export to the USA, Europe or Asia. In honor of this important industry, Medellín has been holding the Feria de Flores since 1957 .

traffic

Line B in the San Javier sector of the Medellín Metro

Ayacucho tram stop Loyola

Medellín is the only city in Colombia with an elevated railway (opened in 1995) that connects it with its surroundings. The Metro de Medellín has two lines with a total of 42 km of rail network. The city also operates two cable car lines to the slums of Santo Domingo and San Javier as well as the Ayacucho tram , a track-guided overhead line tram line based on the Translohr system . The cable cars transport around 100 million passengers each year. The operation and its expansion are financed through the UN concept for climate protection through emissions trading. Since the cable car system saves around 20,000 tons of CO ₂ annually , the city is able to sell corresponding emission certificates. The effects of the cable car system are rated positively in terms of exhaust emissions, crime and structural changes in the poor areas included.

The city won the Sustainable Transport Award in 2012 .

There are also international flights to Enrique Olaya Herrera and Rionegro Airports .

education

The Universidad de Antioquia (UdeA, founded 1803), the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL), the University of Medellín (UdeM, opened 1950), the Pontifical University of Bolivariana (UPB, opened 1936), the Universidad EAFIT (opened 1960) and the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana (opened in 1966) are based in the city.

The Tecnológico de Antioquia has existed since 1983 .

A large-scale education campaign was started under Lord Mayor Sergio Fajardo Valderrama , for example the library and the surrounding complex Parque Biblioteca España in the slum of Santo Domingo was built for six million US dollars .

The German School Medellín in Itagüí , which was given an excellent acoustic as well as architectural point of view for 600 visitors at the beginning of 2011, on whose big stage with a pipe organ completed in 2012, all concerts are performed with original instrumentation and line-up, also made it particularly important can.

crime

The statistics report more than 45,000 homicides in the period 1990–1999. It was only after paramilitary militias were driven out and disarmed at the end of 2003 that the murder rate fell drastically from 6,658 cases (1991) to 778 cases (2004) and was thus below the average in other major Latin American cities. Medellín hit its lowest homicide rate in August 2007.

From April 2009, there was a change in the time structure, with the number of homicides being comparable to the rates in 2003 and 2004. In the years 2007 to 2008, however, the number of murders rose again significantly and in 2009 stood at 2,189 cases.

In 2016 (533 murder victims), 2017 (579), 2018 (625) and 2019 (591), the murder rate leveled off at around 600 homicides for the whole of Medellín, with the center of the city and Comuna 13 San Javier far at the top stand.

Personalities

Sons and daughters

Culture, politics and religion

• Héctor Abad Faciolince (* 1958), writer
• Débora Arango (1907–2005), painter and ceramicist
• J Balvin (born 1985), Latin pop singer
• Fernando Botero (* 1932), painter and artist
• Sergio Cabrera (* 1950), film director and screenwriter
• Darío Castrillón Hoyos (1929–2018), Archbishop of Bucaramanga and Curia Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
• Carlos Ehrensperger (1911-2001), Swiss composer
• Danna García (* 1978), actress, musician and singer
• Juanes (* 1972), singer, songwriter and guitarist
• Carlos Alberto Correa Martínez (* 1968), Roman Catholic bishop; Vicar Apostolic of Guapi
• Zulay Henao (* 1979), actress
• Maluma (* 1994), reggaeton singer
• Fabio Ochoa Vásquez (* 1957), drug dealer
• Andrés Orozco-Estrada (* 1977), conductor
• Héctor Javier Pizarro Acevedo (* 1951), Roman Catholic bishop; Vicar Apostolic of Trinidad
• Jorge Franco Ramos (* 1962), writer
• Luis Fernando Rodríguez Velásquez (* 1959), Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop in Cali
• Álvaro Uribe Vélez (* 1952), politician; from 2002 to 2010 President of Colombia
• Fernando Vallejo (* 1942), writer
• José Mauricio Vélez García (* 1964), Roman Catholic clergyman, auxiliary bishop in Medellín

Sports

• Elvis Álvarez (1965–1995), boxer
• Juan Pablo Ángel (* 1975), football player
• Santiago Arias (* 1992), football player
• Víctor Aristizábal (born 1971), football player
• Santiago Botero (* 1972), racing cyclist
• María Luisa Calle (* 1968), cyclist
• Roger Cañas (* 1990), football player
• John Durango (* 1977), racing cyclist
• Andrés Escobar (1967–1994), football player
• Hernán Darío Gómez (* 1956), football player and coach
• Alejandro González (* 1989), tennis player
• David González (* 1982), football player
• Roberto Guerrero (* 1958), automobile racing driver
• Edwin Hedberg (* 1994), Swedish-Colombian ice hockey player
• Sebastián Hernández (* 1986), football player
• Yonny Hernández (* 1988), motorcycle racer
• René Higuita (* 1966), football player
• Sergio Higuita (* 1997), racing cyclist
• Ricardo Londoño-Bridge (1949–2009), racing car driver
• Mauricio Molina (* 1980), football player
• Marlos Moreno (* 1996), football player
• Mauricio de Narváez (* 1941), automobile racing driver and racing team owner
• David Ospina (* 1988), soccer goalkeeper
• Dorlan Pabón (* 1988), football player
• Mariana Pajón (* 1991), cyclist
• Diana Pineda (* 1984), water diver
• Juan Quintero (* 1993), football player
• Daniela Montoya Quiroz (* 1990), soccer player
• Luis Fernando Suárez (* 1959), football player and coach
• Gabriel Ochoa Uribe (1929-2020), football player and coach
• Juan Pablo Valencia (* 1988), road cyclist
• Camilo Villegas (* 1982), professional golfer

Town twinning

• Fort Lauderdale , Florida, United States
• Bogotá , Colombia
• Bilbao , Spain

Web links

Commons : Medellín  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Alcaldía de Medellín - official website (requires JavaScript; Spanish)
• Cámara de Comercio de Medellín (Chamber of Commerce and Industry) (Spanish)
• The most innovative city in the world (Created: June 12, 2014, German)
• Luigi Monzo: Dignity through architecture . Retrieved July 18, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ESTIMACIONES DE POBLACIÓN 1985 - 2005 Y PROYECCIONES DE POBLACIÓN 2005 - 2020 TOTAL DEPARTAMENTAL POR ÁREA. (Excel; 1.72 MB) DANE, May 11, 2011, accessed on May 13, 2019 (Spanish, extrapolation of the population of Colombia). 
2. ↑ City of the Year online.wsj.com, accessed June 12, 2014 (English)
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Restrepo Uribe, Jorge (1981), Medellín, below Origen, Progreso y Desarrollo, Servigráficas, Medellín. ISBN 84-300-3286-X
4. ↑ Dignity through architecture . luigimonzo.wordpress.com. Accessed May 19, 2017
5. ↑ What is normal? Deutschlandfunk.de, December 6, 2009
6. ↑ walcker-orgel.de The Walcker family and their organs
7. ↑ Open-air travel: giant escalator for the Colombian poor. on: N24.de
8. ↑ Vera Sprothen, Heike Buchter, Christiane Grefe: It goes ahead. Colombia - without emissions . In: Die Zeit , No. 49/2011, economic section, p. 26.
9. ↑ Martin Randelhoff: Winner of the Sustainable Transport Award 2012: San Francisco and Medellin. on: Zukunft-mobilitaet.net
10. ↑ Medellín y el homicidio elcolombiano.com, accessed April 17, 2019 (Spanish)
11. ↑ paramilitaries disarm itself neues-deutschland.de, from November 29, 2003
12. ↑ Dinámica del homicidio . (PDF) Alcaldía de Medellín
13. ↑ Medellín superó la cifra de 600 homicidios en 2018 El Tiempo , accessed on April 17, 2019 (Spanish)
14. ↑ Medellín termina el 2018 con una dolorosa racha de siete homicidios en un solo día caracoltv.com, from December 31, 2018 (Spanish)
15. ↑ En Medellín fueron asesinadas 2,351 personas entre 2016 y 2019 eltiempo.com, from January 6, 2020 (Spanish)