Cosmografía y corografía de Bogotá, siglos XVI Y XXI

Abstract

The imperial expansion of European kingdoms throughout the world, which began in the fifteenth century, increasedthe use of mapping as an essential tool to understand and master the continents where they had penetrated andspecially in the new territories they aimed to explore. To this end, in the late sixteenth century the Spanish Crownreintroduced cosmography as a field of knowledge applied to the continents of America and Oceania, and developedinstruments for the chorographic and geographical recognition of the territories claimed on behalf of the King. Cosmographynaturalized ways to describe the new colonies and its habitants as well as ways to produce, read and usemaps as a representation of the achievements and ideals of imperial policies, concerning land management and toreport the implementation of the actual rules. The paper introduces some relevant aspects of the Mayor ChroniclerCosmograph post and of the instruments that generated a cosmography and a normative cartography, and a reflectionon how to create a chorography and practiced cartography, based not in the official look but in an interdisciplinaryapproximation to understand the spaces where individuals from different backgrounds, specifically in Santa Fe andBogota, converged, coexisted and developped.