Map - Cumbal

Cumbal is a town and municipality in the Nariño Department, Colombia.

Historically it is said that in 1529 the chief Cumbe founded a town with the name "Pavas" located at the foot of the Cumbal volcano, between the Blanco river and the Riochiquito gorge. Its inhabitants belonged to the grassland ethnic group. In the year 1547, its name was changed to Cumbal in honor of its founder. On December 14, 1923, due to a series of earthquakes that that area suffered, this settlement disappeared. The population was refounded on July 20, 1924, in another place and its municipal erection was carried out by Ordinance 59 of 1925.

Cumbal is located 3172 meters above sea level. Indigenous homeland of the Pasto ethnic group in the district of Chiles. The territory of the municipality is mountainous, included within the areas of the Altiplano of Túquerres and Ipiales and the Nudo de los Pastos, standing out among its orographic accidents the Cumbal and Chiles volcanoes, with heights reaching 4,760 m and the headwaters of the Buenavista, Colorado, Swallows, Hondon, Negro, Oreja, Panecillo, Picacho and Portachuelo Rivers. Due to the conformation of the relief, the cold and paramo thermal regions are presented, with an average temperature of 11 °C. The regions’s soils are generated by alluvia from the waters of the Blanco, Carchi, Chiquito, Imbina, Marino, Mayasquer, Nuevo Mundo, Salado and San Juan rivers.3