Medellín

In 1616 the Spanish official Francisco de Herrera Campuzano settled 80 Indigenous people in a village called San Lorenzo de Aburrá, on the site of today's El Poblado, in a valley the Spanish had named after its native inhabitants. The town itself, the Villa de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Medellín, was proclaimed on 2 November 1675 at the place where the Aná stream met the Medellín River — today's Berrío Park. Its first census that year counted about 3,000 people. In 1826 it became the capital of Antioquia, and through the 19th century it grew rich as a trading town, first exporting gold and then coffee.

Industry followed in the early 20th century. Local families founded large companies, among them the textile firm Coltejer in 1907, and the city became an industrial centre, building its first airport, Olaya Herrera, in 1932. The population rose from about 60,000 in 1905 to about 358,000 in 1951 and then tripled again to more than a million by 1973, as migrants from the countryside built homes on the steep slopes faster than the city could plan for them.

The city became the home of Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel, and in 1991 it recorded 7,273 murders; after Escobar's death in 1993 gangs, guerrilla militias and paramilitaries fought over the hillside comunas into the 2000s. The metro opened in 1995, the first Metrocable line in 2004, and successive mayors invested in transport, libraries and parks in the poorest districts. By 2017 the murder rate had fallen to 23 per 100,000 people, from 266 in 1991, and in 2013 the Urban Land Institute named Medellín the world's most innovative city.

Medellín is the capital of paisa culture — commercial, devout, sociable and fiercely proud of Antioquia. The Pueblito Paisa on Nutibara Hill recreates a traditional village of the region. The city's biggest celebration is the Feria de las Flores in August, when silleteros, flower growers from the rural district of Santa Elena, carry great wooden frames of flowers on their backs through the streets; the festival, first held in May, moved to August in 1958. In December millions of Christmas lights along the river and La Playa Avenue draw large crowds.

Music runs from tango to reggaeton. The tango singer Carlos Gardel died in a plane crash in Medellín in 1935, and the city adopted tango as its own: there is a Casa Gardeliana in the Manrique neighbourhood and an international tango festival. Today reggaeton is a strong presence, with hundreds of groups and many concerts a year. The International Poetry Festival was founded in 1991, and the art of Fernando Botero and Débora Arango hangs in the city's museums. Football divides the city between Atlético Nacional, founded in 1947, and Independiente Medellín, founded in 1913.

The 2018 census counted about 2.4 million people in the city of Medellín, and the metropolitan area of the Aburrá Valley — ten municipalities including Bello, Itagüí and Envigado — has more than four million, the second-largest in Colombia after Bogotá. The city is divided into 16 urban communes and a rural fringe of corregimientos such as Santa Elena. Wealth follows the valley: El Poblado in the south-east is the richest district, Laureles and the west are comfortably middle class, while the northern and western hillsides are working-class and poorer.

The economy is built on textiles and clothing, steel, food and drink, chemicals, construction, energy and services, and the city promotes itself as a centre of innovation and technology. The metro, used by hundreds of thousands of people a day, sets the rhythm of working life.

Growing numbers of foreign visitors and remote workers have pushed up rents and prices in El Poblado and Laureles, and drugging and robbery of foreigners by criminal groups in nightlife areas and through dating apps have become a recognised problem. Many hillside neighbourhoods still live with informal housing, unemployment and the presence of local criminal groups.

Medellín eats the hearty food of Antioquia. Meals come with an arepa — here made of cooked, ground maize with no other ingredients — often eaten with butter or cheese. The bandeja paisa piles beans, rice, ground beef, chicharrón (fried pork belly), sausage, a fried egg, plantain, avocado and an arepa onto one platter, and sancocho de gallina is a hen soup with potato, cassava and plantain. Arepas de choclo are made from fresh corn.

The menú del día, a set lunch of soup, a main plate and a fresh juice, is what most people eat at midday, and street stalls sell empanadas, buñuelos (fried cheese dough balls) and fruit cut to order. At Christmas families make natilla, a set pudding of maize starch, milk and panela, unrefined cane sugar, to eat with buñuelos.

To drink there is tinto, plain black coffee, and coffee from the region in the city's cafés. Aguardiente Antioqueño, an anise-flavoured cane spirit, is the drink of parties and football matches, and a small local brewery, Tres Cordilleras, makes wheat beer and ales. El Poblado's Zona Rosa has the widest range of international restaurants.