Medellín borrowed its name from Cortés’s Spanish village
Medellín, Colombia’s Aburrá Valley metropolis, is officially a Special District of Science, Technology and Innovation. Spaniards founded a 1616 indigenous pueblo as San Lorenzo de Aburrá; the Extremadura village that birthed Hernán Cortés later supplied the city’s lasting name.
The Spanish Medellín began as Metellinum, a military base founded in 75 BC by the Roman general Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius. Count Pedro Portocarrero y Luna, president of the Council of the Indies, asked the Crown to give his hometown's name to the new American settlement; Queen Mariana of Austria agreed in November 1674, the governor proclaimed it on 2 November 1675, and a coat of arms followed in 1676. Along the way the valley was also called Aburrá de los Yamesíes, Saint Bartholomew and Saint Lawrence of Aná.
In August 1541 Marshal Jorge Robledo, near present-day Heliconia, spotted what looked like a valley and sent Jerónimo Luis Tejelo, who reached the plain on the night of 23 August. The native name Aburrá, meaning painters, referred to the decorated textiles of local rulers. In 1574 Gaspar de Rodas, Antioquia's first governor, sought land for a ranch and received 8 square kilometres. Herrera's 1616 village housed 80 Indigenous people in what is now El Poblado, and a 1646 caste law split them from mestizos and mulattos, prompting a new town at Aná, today Berrío Park.
The valley sat between the northeastern gold mines and the old capital, Santa Fe de Antioquia, feeding the miners. Marriages at San Lorenzo church rose from six couples in 1646–1650 to 41 in 1671–1675. As wealthy families moved in, settlers won their own council despite Santa Fe's opposition. Medellín became Antioquia's capital in 1826 and grew rich exporting gold, then coffee.
Today about 2.4 million people live in the city and over 4 million in the metro area, which generates 67 percent of Antioquia's output and 11 percent of Colombia's. Harvard's Veronica Rudge urbanism award in 2013, the World Urban Forum in 2014 and the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize in 2016 marked its transformation.
Source: Medellín
