Qualla: Une

Une: Introduction

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit --F3rn4nd0 17:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC), CC BY 2.5. Three letters. U-N-E. It is the shortest municipal name in all of Cundinamarca Department, and it belongs to one of the department's oldest places. The word comes from Muysccubun, the language of the Muisca. Depending on which source you trust, it means pot or meeting center of the Ubaque chiefdom, good thing, or sky - all three translations have survived in the ethnographic record because none of them quite won. That ambiguity feels appropriate. Une, forty-three kilometers southeast of Bogotá, has always held onto things other places let go.

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Image: --F3rn4nd0 17:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC) | CC BY 2.5

Une: A Liberal Town in a Conservative Sea

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SORAGON, CC BY-SA 4.0. During Colombia's long and bloody period of Liberal-Conservative bipartisanship - a century of political polarization that exploded into civil wars, culminating most famously in the Thousand Days' War of 1899 to 1902 - Une was known by a nickname that announced its politics: the ...

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Image: SORAGON | CC BY-SA 4.0

Une: February 22, 1538

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RS599, CC0. The municipality was founded on 22 February 1538 by Diego Romero de Aguilar, one of the members of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada's expedition into the Andes. That makes Une older than Bogotá itself, which Jiménez de Quesada founded on 6 August 1538, about six months later. The first...

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Image: RS599 | CC0

Une: Potatoes, Specifically

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit fanArt, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sixty percent of Une's area is farmland, and potato is the dominant crop. According to the National Federation of Potato Growers - FEDEPAPA, the grower organization that speaks for one of Colombia's defining food industries - Une is among the Cundinamarca municipalities most suit...

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Image: fanArt | CC BY-SA 3.0

Une: Rock Art in the Hills

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ANDRES CHINGATE, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Muisca left more than a toponym at Une. The hills surrounding the municipality contain rock art and petroglyphs - carvings into stone that date to the pre-Columbian period and, in several cases, remain accessible to researchers and visitors in the villages of the municipality...

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Image: ANDRES CHINGATE | CC BY-SA 4.0

Une: Small, Specific, Alive

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RS599, CC0. Population counts for Une are modest. The 2015 census registered 9,196 inhabitants; more recent estimates show a slight decrease. In a country that has urbanized as dramatically as Colombia, Une's population trajectory is typical of many small Andean municipalities - young people...

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Image: RS599 | CC0