Qualla: Quindío Department https://qualla.com/quindio-department en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Quindío Department https://qualla.com/quindio-department Quindío Department: Introduction https://qualla.com/quindio-department/ Photo credit Alejandro Bayer Tamayo from Armenia, Colombia, CC BY-SA 2.0. Open a map of Quindío and the town names read like an atlas of homesickness: Armenia, Montenegro, Circasia, Salento, Génova, Córdoba, Filandia. The settlers who reached this corner of the Colombian Andes in the 1840s - peasants from Antioquia pushing south through cloud forest and bamboo - named their new towns after places the world thought it had forgotten. Filandia is the prettiest of the bunch: a compound of Latin filia and Andia, "daughter of the Andes." The department itself is small, just 0.2 percent of Colombia's territory and only twelve municipalities - but it grows some of the finest coffee in the world under the tallest palms on Earth.

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Image: Alejandro Bayer Tamayo from Armenia, Colombia | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/d2f1-quind-o-department-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Quindío Department: The Quimbaya and the Pijao https://qualla.com/quindio-department/ Photo credit Darthvader2, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Quimbaya civilization occupied this land until roughly the 10th century BC, leaving behind the gold work that now fills the Quimbaya Museum: intricate poporos, anthropomorphic figures, tunjos. When the Spanish arrived, the people in these valleys were the Pijao, a Carib-desce...

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Image: Darthvader2 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/d2f1-quind-o-department-the-quimbaya-and-the-pijao.mp3 0:06 2 full Quindío Department: The Antioquian Colonization https://qualla.com/quindio-department/ Photo credit Ben10, CC BY-SA 4.0. Salento was founded in 1842, the first new settlement in the repopulation of the range. Throughout the 19th century, peasant families from Antioquia made the journey south - a migration that Colombians call the colonización antioqueña and that gave the region its lasting paisa id...

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Image: Ben10 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/d2f1-quind-o-department-the-antioquian-colonization.mp3 0:06 3 full Quindío Department: The National Tree https://qualla.com/quindio-department/ Photo credit Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0. In the Cocora Valley, the Quindío wax palm grows taller than any other palm on Earth - some specimens reach 60 meters, slender trunks crowned with tufts of fronds that sway against the cloud forest. On September 16, 1985, president Belisario Betancur signed Law 61, declaring Cero...

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Image: Bernard Gagnon | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/d2f1-quind-o-department-the-national-tree.mp3 0:06 4 full Quindío Department: Coffee Culture https://qualla.com/quindio-department/ Photo credit CamiloB4, Public domain. Quindío sits inside the Colombian Coffee-Growers Axis - the eje cafetero - and produces some of the highest-quality coffee beans in the country. The volcanic soils here, enriched by ancient eruptions, are exceptionally fertile. The weather has two rainy seasons (April and Novembe...

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Image: CamiloB4 | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/d2f1-quind-o-department-coffee-culture.mp3 0:06 5 full Quindío Department: The Christmas Panther https://qualla.com/quindio-department/ Photo credit National Police of Colombia, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the night of December 7, the rural pueblos of Quindío glow. The Alumbrado de Navidad, the Candlelight Festival tied to the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, fills streets and courtyards with lanterns and candles. Alongside the candles, in many homes, sits a small blue figure...

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Image: National Police of Colombia | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/d2f1-quind-o-department-the-christmas-panther.mp3 0:06 6 full Quindío Department: Birds, Orchids, Bamboo https://qualla.com/quindio-department/ Photo credit CC BY 2.5. Quindío is the natural habitat of 520 bird species and about 60 mammal species - a startling density for a department this size. The area holds the largest diversity of Heliconia species in the world and staggering numbers of orchids (Cattleya, Odontoglossum, Miltonia, Phragmiped...

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Image: CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/2/f/1/quindio-department-wp/d2f1-quind-o-department-birds-orchids-bamboo.mp3 0:06 7 full