NEW

GRANADA (Span. Nueva Granada)  , the title under Spanish colonial administration of that part of South America now known as the republic of Colombia, which at one time was extended to include Venezuela and Ecuador . It also was for a time the title of the united territories of Panama and Colombia under republican auspices . The Bogota plateau, then inhabited by a partly civilized Indian nation known to the Spaniards as Chibchas, or Muyscas (the second name seems to have been applied to them through a misunderstanding, the word meaning " men "), was invaded from the Caribbean coast and conquered in 1537 by Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, who, in honour of his native province, called it the " Nuevo Reino de Granada." The title at first applied only to the plateau regions of Colombia, as the coast provinces had been previously occupied and named . In 1550 an audiencia real under the viceroyalty of Peru was established at Santa Fe (Bogota), but in 1564 this isolated group of Spanish settlements was transformed into a presidency . In 1718, owing to the unmanageable size of the viceroyalty of Peru, it was divided and a new viceroyalty was created from' the various provinces lying in the north-western angle of the continent, extending from Tumbez northward to the northern limits of Panama, and eastward to the Orinoco, to which the name of Nueva Granada was given . The first viceroy was Pedroza y Guerrero, but his successor, Jorge Villalonga, resumed the title of president, and it was not until 1739 that the title of viceroy was definitely established . The new viceroyalty included the provinces of Tierra Firma (now the republic of Panama); Maracaibo, Caracas, Cumana and Guyana (now included in Venezuela); Cartagena, Santa Marta, Rio Hacha, Antioquia, Pamplona, Socorfo, Tunja, Santa Fe, Neiva, Mariquita, Popayan and Pasto (now included in Colombia); and Quito, Cuenca and Guayaquil (now included in Ecuador) . In 1777 the provinces of Maracaibo, Caracas, Cumana and Guyana were detached from the viceroyalty to form the captaincy-general of Caracas; otherwise it remained as above until the termination of Spanish rule in South America . For the republic of Colombia (1819-1830), the republic of New Granada (1831-1861), the United States of Colombia (1861-1886), and the republic of Colombia (1886 to date), see COLOMBIA .