AmericasEvent

Founding of Bogotá

When: 1540
Where: Bogotá
Episodes: 1

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founded Bogotá on 6 August 1538 after conquering the Muisca. The settlement was initially named Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza, later becoming Santa Fe in 1540.

Episodes

27 July 1540 · BogotáCity Status and Renaming
In 1540, Charles V granted city status and renamed the settlement Santa Fe, changing its original name of Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza.

Background and detail

Founding and Naming. The city was founded on 6 August 1538 with the name Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza. In 1540, Charles V granted city status and renamed it Santa Fe, honoring a town in Granada where Quesada grew up.

People involved

Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada · Spanish conquistador and founder
Domingo de las Casas · Dominican friar who celebrated the first mass

Sources

Bogotá Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-07
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-06

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.