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Chocó is a department of Colombia known for its large Afro-Colombian population. It is in the west of the country, and is the only Colombian department to have coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean sea. It also has all of Colombia's border with Panama. Its capital is Quibdó.

Despite having an incredibly diverse geography, unique ecosystems and unexploited resources, Chocó is one of the Departments in Colombia with the worst human conditions for living. On March 2007 Colombian media reported the death of some 50 children due to starvation in less than three months, this created awareness of the grave condition Chocó inhabitants are facing. Despite being the world's rainiest lowland, with close to 400 inches of annual precipitation[1] Chocó's capital Quibdó was left without water.[2]

History

The Department was created in 1944 but it was never legally established.[3] Due to its low population, inhospitable topography, and distance from Bogotá, it has received little attention from the Colombian government. During the government of military dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla Chocó was to be eliminated as a department and divided between Antioquia Department and Valle del Cauca Department, but Pinilla's intentions were thwarted by the 1957 coup d'etat of General Gabriel París Gordillo.

Colombian armed conflict

Until 1993 Chocó was a relatively peaceful province. However with the coming of the Ejercito Popular de Liberación (EPL) there ensued a three-way stuggle between the federal military, the incoming guerillas and the local paramilitary, with the serious consequence of massive population displacement. By 1997, although the military did not control much of the province, the internal Autodefensas Unidas Campesinas (Farmers United for Self-Defence) controlled about 75% of the territory.

On May 2, 2002 in the Colombian town of Bojayá (with its urban centre also referred to as Bellavista). FARC guerrillas seized the town in an attempt to take control of the Atrato River region from AUC paramilitaries, in the process killing approximately 119 civilians in an apparently indiscriminate attack with improvised homemade mortars assembled with gas cylinders parts (known in Spanish as pipeta or Cilindro bomba). This massacre became known as the Bojayá massacre.

Geography

The **Chocó Department** is covered mostly by the Baudó Mountains.

The Chocó Department makes up most of the ecoregion known as El Chocó that extends from Panama to Ecuador.

In the municipality of Lloró which holds the Highest Average Annual Precipitation record measured at 523.6 inches (13,300 mm) which makes it the wettest place in the world. Three large rivers drain the Chocó Department, the Atrato River, the San Juan River and the Baudó River, each one with many tributaries. The Baudó Mountains on the coast and the Cordillera Occidental are cut by low valleys with an altitude less than 1,000 meters that form most of the territory. Most of the Chocó is thick rain forest. Much of Colombia's internal consumption of wood come from the Chocó, as well as a small percentage for export.

Demographics

Chocó is inhabited predominantly by descendants of African slaves brought by the Spanish Colonizers after conquering the Americas. The second race/ethnic group are the remnants of Native American people known as the Emberá with more than half of their total population in Colombia living in Chocó, some 35,500. They survive by practicing hunting and artisan fishing and live by rivers.[4]

The total population as of 2005 was less than half a million, with more than half living in the Quibdó valley.

Towns and municipalities

Quibdó is the largest city with a population of almost 100,000. Other important cities and towns include Istmina, Condoto, Nóvita and El Carmen in the interior, Acandí on the Caribbean coast, and Solano on the Pacific coast. Resorts include Capurgana on the Caribbean coast, and Jurado, Nuquí, and Bahía Solano on the west coast.

Municipalities

References

Template:Es icon todacolombia.com - Chocó Department

notes

External links

Mosquera-Machados, Silvia del Carmen (2002) "Cadre général du département du Choco" in Analyse multi-aléas et risques naturels dans le département du Chocó (nord-ouest de la Colombie) Université de Genève, Geneva in French
"Mision de Observacion a la Situación de las Comunidades Afrodescendientes en Colombia: Anexo 1" in Spanish;
Choco 7 dias - local newspaper founded by Elacio Murillo, former member of the Choco state assembly who was assassinated by armed gunmen on January 12, 2007.

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 * [[Bojayá massacre]]
 {{Departments of Colombia}}
+[www.Barule.org]
 [www.chocosabor.com]