Like many Latin American capitals, the site where Bogota is now located was also an indigenous urban center. Little is known about the nature of this urban settlement.
Bogota was founded on August 6, 1538, by Spaniards, who called it Santa Fe. The complete name is still Santafe de Bogota. It was originally a settlement of twelve straw huts and a small church, on the site which is now the Plaza de Bolivar.
The location was selectd by the conquistadores because its high altitude places it out of the zone where tropical diseases are rampant, and the fertile soil made rich agricultural land.
The basic plan of Bogota is the same as most Latin American cities. It is centered around the plaza mayor, called the Plaza de Bolivar, which houses the main political and religious buildings of the cities, with regular blocks extending in all directions. The city still has this basic shape, with calles running east to west and carreras running north to south.
Few towns grew physically in three centuries of colonial rule, as the original plans were able to accommodate what growth there was. It wasn't until after Independence that the city growth took off.
Bogota was declared the capital of Colombia December 17, 1819, after the Republica de la Gran Colombia, compromising what is now Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador and parts of Peru, disolved into separate countries. Its status as capital guaranteed its continued growth.
Economic growth due primarily to coffee helped the country grow, and Bogota with it. By 1900, the city had about 100,000 people, with an annual growth rate of about 5.7%.
The city experienced another period of rapid urban growth after World War I, when the money brought into the economy from the high price of coffee on the world relationship financed a growth in infrastructure throughout the country.
The city did not begin to grow much physically until the late 1800s. Since then, it has grown along north to south arteries, notably "la septima," Carrera 15 and the more recently constructed Autopista.
The first major growth occurred to the north into an area called Chapinero. By 1936, this neighborhood to the north had already become an important addition to the central city, first as summer residences for the elite, and later as their yearround neighborhood.
This pattern of growth to the north of the city continued as the elite moved farther and farther from the center. After Chapinero, the growth of the city continued through the Parque Nacional, El Chico, Chico Norte, Santa Barbara.
The upper and middle classes of the city remain primarily along this corridor, but due to massive immigration the older structures nearest the CBD could not accommodate all the new immigrants, and more and more squatter settlements and other developments, such as Ciudad Kennedy, financed by the Alliance for Progress, have sprung up to the south, east and west of the city.
Growth of Bogota/Geography, Macalester/jbruland@macalester.edu
