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Estancia Vieja de Nuestra Señora del El Carmen, its original name was founded on July 16, 1686, by Lope Bernardo Maris Pedrozo, Francisco González Vega, Francisco Marqués, Nicolás Rodríguez de Mesa, Francisco Quintero Arias and Isabel Fernández de la Torre.

The historian Ciro Castilla Jácome, has argued and supported the founding date of El Carmen, through the document that rests in the National Archive.

On November 7, 1808, he was elected into the parish and the first stone was laid for the construction of the church.

Progress was slow, developing through colonization along the road from Ocaña to Santa Marta. The current population center was formed at the beginning of the 19th century and its existence runs parallel to the founding of the parish.

Among the first settlers of Estancia Vieja, Jerónimo Gómez Farelo and Pérez Casadiego stand out, the first, ancestor of the man of letters Enrique Pardo Farelo, popularly known as Luis Tablanca. Little is known about the population that existed before the arrival of the conquerors. Some chroniclers make mention of the Caretes Indians who lived in the intermediate regions of the Hacaritamas tribes and the jungles of the Motilones.

As an important fact, it is necessary to highlight that at the dawn of this century, approximately in 1916, Colonel Francisco Rivas founded ´´ La Fábrica de Aceites Alianza´´, a castor oil extraction plant that exported its production through the port of Barranquilla to Germany, but due to the development of the First World War and then to the political violence of 1949, its machinery stopped as did the thrust of this prosperous tobacco town.





Full name: Old Ranch of Nuestra Señora del Carmen

Foundation: November 7, 1808

Founders: Lope Fernando Maris, Francisco González Vega, Francisco Márquez, Nicolás Rodríguez de Mesa, Francisco Quintero Arias and Isabel Fernández de la Torre

Population: DANE 2005 Census: 16,377 inhabitants.

Altitude: 761 meters above sea level

Area: 1687 Km2

Climate: Average 23ºC.

Distance to Cúcuta: 313 Km

Geographic coordinates: Longitude west of Greenwich 73º 27´, North Latitude 8º 31´

Limits: North: Republic of Venezuela,

South: Ocaña, González (Department of Cesar),

East: Convention,

West: Department of Cesar.

Western region

Rivers: Quebrada Grande as the main river artery in addition to the El Lorito, La Trinidad, La Osa and Honda streams

Economy:

Agricultural production in lines such as coffee, beans, onion, tomato, corn, cassava, banana.

Livestock production such as bovines.

Mining production: lime and stalactite.





Holidays:

July 16: Virgen del Carmen, patron saint, October 2: Santo Ángel, Patron of Guamalito

Tourist sites:

Edge of the Virgin

Edge of the Cross

Sacred mount

Local pool

La Chamorra, the Waterfall

Monument to Our Lady of Carmen in Guadualito

Pedestal reminder to the chieftain

Liberal Jorge Eliécer Gaitán

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