Urabá, salida de Antioquia al mar: geografía e historia de su colonización

Original Title: ANTIOQUIA'S CORRIDOR TO THE SEA: AN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF URABA 140 Pages plus bibliography and maps. ABSTRACT: The downslope drift of population from the crowded Andean highlands to the humid tropical lowlands is a theme of growing significance to South American settlement geography. In northwesternmost Colombia, in the province of Antioquia, the rain-drenched western flank of the Andean cordillera faces onto the Atrato valley rather than onto the Pacific. Its principal penetration road, winding down the Rio Sucio canyon toward the forested llanuras (plains), has been directed northwesterly toward its natural outlet on the shores of the Caribbean at the Gulf of Uraba. Here lies not only deep water, but what may be one of the largest tracts of good alluvial soil in the rainy lowlands of the American tropics. The recent development of the Antioqueno Uraba, has been based on a unique constellation of geographical and historical circumstances, not the least of which are its geographical position and the cultural dynamism of the Antioquenos themselves. The re-evaluation of this tropical lowland environment, based on modern medical advances, massive infusions of outside capital, and a new, if inadequate, transport system, has implications that reach far beyond the confines of the zone of settlement. The historical background of this frontier and the processes at work as man transforms the natural landscape to a cultural landscape is the subject of the study. (Author)