Cali

Cali,¹ capital of Valle del Cauca Department,² Colombia, is the agricultural capital for local sugar and coca growers and refiners. It is centered west of the Cauca River and on a small tributary with the same name as the city. The modern city limits extend to the Cauca. It is in a high (over 1000 meters) valley bordered westward by the foothills of the Cordillera Occidental (Western Range) of the Andes.

The metropolitan population is 2.776 million, with 2.306 million in the city proper.³

The tallest building is the Tower of Cali (Torre de Cali), a 44 story hotel built in 1980. Other buildings of note include the Municipal Theater (Teatro Municipal) and the Church of Saint Anthony (Iglesia de San Antonio).⁴

The Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport, northeast of the city, is one of the nation's busiest.

External references

Cali skyline, with a hillside in the foreground

Historical maps

Footnotes

1. Formally Santiago de Cali.
2. Often shortened to Valle.
3. Calculations in world-gazetteer.com, accessed 2/6 and 4/20/2013.
4. Emporis.com, accessed 4/20/2013.
5. The metropolitan population estimate in 2002 was 2.868 million (world-gazetteer.com, 'secondary' estimate, accessed 4/20/2013) and grew larger in 2004 before declining. It seems reasonable to suppose that the metropolitan population in 2000 was less than that in 2002.