Azogues

The valley of the Burgay river was home to the Peleusí, one of the peoples counted as part of the Cañari nation, and the area belonged to the Cañari world that the Inca later conquered. On 4 October 1562, the feast of Saint Francis, Gil Ramírez Dávalos founded a settlement here, named San Francisco de Peleusí de Azogues: Peleusí after the yellow flowers that grew in the fields and Azogues after the mercury, azogue in Spanish, found in nearby mines.

For two centuries it belonged to the jurisdiction of Cuenca; it became a parish in 1775 and took part in the independence movement of 1820 together with Cuenca. In April 1825 the government of Gran Colombia made it the head of a canton, and it later became the capital of Cañar province.

In the 20th century the town grew, with the weaving of toquilla-straw hats among its main industries, and by the 1930s a road on the line of today's Pan-American Highway linked it with Cuenca. The Virgen de la Nube received her canonical coronation in 1967, and in 1968 Azogues became the seat of its own Roman Catholic diocese. In 2009 a 30-metre monument to the Virgin was inaugurated on the summit of Cerro Abuga. Today the city is part of the Cuenca metropolitan area, and thousands of its residents travel to Cuenca every day for work.

Religion is at the centre of local identity. The Virgen de la Nube, the Virgin of the Cloud, is considered the guardian of Azogues, and on 1 January and 31 May thousands of pilgrims from Ecuador and abroad gather at her sanctuary on the hill. Many of the city's churches are built of yellow stone from the old quarry on Cerro Abuga, with round arches.

Crafts are the other pillar. Toquilla-straw hats are woven across Cañar province, with most weavers living in the communities of Azogues canton, and the city is known for a Panama-hat industry that produces mainly for export. Around the city, families keep other trades alive: potters at Jatumpamba, ironworkers in the parish of Javier Loyola, and the stone carvers of Rumiurco, who carve grey andesite from Cerro Cojitambo and display their work beside the Pan-American Highway.

In the community of Jatumpamba, in San Miguel de Porotos, older ways of life persist in pottery, hat weaving, legends and traditional farming practices. Azogueños share much of the culture of neighbouring Cuenca.

The 2022 census counted 35,763 people in the city of Azogues and 74,515 in Azogues canton, making it the second-largest city in Cañar province. Its main activities are commerce, farming, livestock and education, and as the provincial capital it is home to government offices and the seat of a diocese.

Azogues works closely with Cuenca, its much larger neighbour, and many residents travel there daily on the fast road between the two cities, so that Azogues is often described as a commuter town of the Cuenca metropolitan area. The crafts — hats, pottery, ironwork and stone carving — still provide income for many families in the parishes around the city.

The city spreads along the Burgay valley and up the surrounding hillsides. Emigration, above all to the United States, has been heavy from Cañar and Azuay, peaking in Ecuador during the banking crisis of 1998–99, and migration from Cañar remains strong. The rise in crime nationwide has reached even these calmer southern cities.

Azogues shares the cooking of the southern highlands, which centres on pork and maize. Hornado, roast pork carved at market stalls, comes with mote, the large boiled hominy eaten with many meals in the region, and mote pillo is a typical dish of nearby Cuenca. Cuy, guinea pig, is popular in the highlands, often served with maize or potatoes.

The almuerzo, the set lunch of soup and a main course, is the everyday meal in the centre. Bakeries sell sweet breads, and in the week before All Souls' Day colada morada, a drink of black corn flour sweetened with panela and flavoured with fruit and spices, is served with guagua de pan, bread shaped like a child. Canelazo is a hot drink of sugarcane spirit, sugar or panela and cinnamon water, often with fruit juice such as naranjilla.