León, Nicaragua
Leon on the map of Nicaragua
Leon, completely Santiago de los Caballeros de León, is the provincial capital of the administrative district of León in the west of Nicaragua. The city has about 158,000 inhabitants and is located near the Pacific Ocean and is a center of the peanut and sugar cultivation. The up in the eighties of the 20th century the dominant and grown under enormous damage to the environment cotton is no longer produced.
History
León was founded in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. The first León (León Viejo) was, however, about 30 km distant from the present. After an eruption of Momotombo, the hard hit the city, León was re-established in the vicinity of the indigenous settlement Subtiaba. The ruins of the old León Viejo León are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
León was the seat of Indendencia de León in Nicaragua, which was established in 1787 and later the province of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the 1820/21 existed from 1812 to 1814 and again.
In Leon the Act of the complete independence of Nicaragua and Costa Rica from Spain was signed on 11 October 1821. Leon then capital of the State of Nicaragua was the Central American confederation and after emerging from Selbiger Nicaragua in 1838, its capital. However, changed during some years the capital status between León and Granada repeated back and forth. 1858 this situation was solved by Managua was made the capital of the country.
León is considered an intellectual center of Nicaragua and traditionally stands for the liberal element of the country; the city was a center of revolutionary struggles 1978/79 and the residence of the famous poet Rubén Darío. During a visit to Leon, the dictator Anastasio Somoza García was shot on September 21, 1956 by Rigoberto López Pérez, the young poet, and died eight days later from his injuries. Since 1979, the city of León is governed uninterruptedly by the FSLN.
Attractions
- The 1860 finished after more than 100 years of construction León Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption is the largest and oldest in Central America. Leon also has a university, founded in 1812.
- Other attractions are numerous historic buildings from the colonial era,
- The Art Museum Ortiz Gurdian with a large exhibition of classic and modern painting and the
- Churches " Subtiaba " El Calvario, La Recolección, La Merced, San Felipe and San Francisco.
- Rubén Dario's house is a museum.
Many buildings that were destroyed during the revolutionary years, have been still not restored or rebuilt. Many wealthy Leoneans have a weekend house on the beach of Poneloya (20 km).
Sutiaba
In the language Subtiaba Sutiaba means place of the flow of small black snails. To Subtiaba were 18 Comarcas Rurales ( rural districts ) which were inhabited by about 17,000 indigenous people. 1609 there was an eruption of the Momotombo and due to numerous quakes in 1610 León Viejo was relocated to the site of today's Leon to the center of the Cabildo de Indio Sutiaba. From 1698 until August 24, 1710, the San Juan de Bautist Subtiava church was built in Sutiava under the Corregidor Diego Rodríguez Menéndez. 1844 disappeared the tower dome, it was rebuilt in the early 20th century. 1776, the administrative districts of Nicaragua according to the reform of Carlos III were redistributed. The area of present-day Nicaragua was divided into five counties: Leon, Matagalpa, El Realejo, Sutiaba and Nicoya. 1902 Sutiaba was incorporated in León as Barrio Sutiaba. The Barrio Sutiaba today forms the western part of Leon, direction Poneloya. The Barrio Sutiaba had about 35,500 inhabitants in 2000.
Sons and daughters of the town
- Omar Cabezas ( born 1950 ), author, revolutionary and politician
- José Madriz (1867-1911), President 1909-1910
- Mariano Prado Baca (1776-1837), Supreme Director of the province of El Salvador in the Central American Confederation
- Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1925-1980), dictatorial President of Nicaragua 1967-1972 and 1974-1979
- Luis Somoza Debayle (1922-1967), President of Nicaragua dictatorial 1956-1967