Bogota's history

Bacatá was the center of the Chibcha tribe was in these lands to the time when the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada founded the city on August 6 of 1538.

In this new city, named Bogotá, established the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1717. In 1819, Simón Bolívar took over and designated it as the capital of Gran Colombia (now territory of Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela).
It was also the capital of New Granada (now Colombia) when Great Colombia was dissolved in 1830.

The city grew slowly because the citizens or "cops" wished to preserve their ancient culture. Very fond of their city and took care of their churches, convents and houses built in Spanish colonial style and their schools as the College of St. Bartholomew (1604), the St. Thomas Aquinas College, (1608) which became University Santo Tomás (1639) and the Colegio Mayor del Rosario (1653), among others.