La Manga del Cura
La Manga del Cura is a territory located in the Manabí Province belonging to the canton El Carmen in Ecuador.
The territory covers an area of approximately 487 square kilometres (188 sq mi)[1] with around 24,000 inhabitants.[2]
One of the most important tourist sites in the territory is the Cascada del Salto del Armadillo of 30 metres (98 ft) high.[3]
History
The first mention of La Manga del Cura comes from 1837, when a resident of Daule Canton, Nicolás Avilés, bought the area of the San Francisco de Peripa hill (that belonged to the area described) for 100 pesos.[4] The name of the place honors the parish priest Luis María Pinto, who in 1928 opened, at the tip of a machete, a path (narrow path between palisades or fences, called in South America "manga") from Calceta to Pichincha, in order to reduce the hours of travel between both places.[5]
Until 2015 it was considered an undefined area and therefore had no administrative or political membership to any canton or province of Ecuador and was in dispute by the four provinces bordering of Guayas, Manabí, Santo Domingo and Los Ríos. After multiple attempts to resolve this conflict, Guayas and Manabí persisted in the litigation, which led to a referendum held on September 27, 2015, through which by majority its inhabitants decided the accession of the territory to the province of Manabí.[6] Finally, on April 11, 2017, the National Assembly of Ecuador in session 443 of the Plenary and in the second debate, approved the bill that established the territorial limit of La Manga del Cura, with 93 votes in favor and 5 abstentions.[7] This resolution was published in the Supplement to the Official Register No. 994 on April 28, 2017.[8]
References
- "El censo en la Manga del Cura arrancó entre arengas de grupos". Diario Expreso (in Spanish). Gráficos Nacionales S.A. 16 August 2015. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
- "Manabí confía en que La Manga del Cura ratificará pertenencia territorial" (in Spanish). 7 September 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
- "La Cascada del Salto del Armadillo, 30 metros de emoción y vértigo". Diario La Hora (in Spanish). 16 January 2005. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
- "Historia de La Manga del Cura se cuenta desde dos posturas" (in Spanish). 7 September 2015. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
- "Manabitas y guayasenses se disputan la productiva tierra de La Manga del Cura". El Telégrafo (in Spanish). 30 November 2014. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
- "El 64,2% de La Manga del Cura optó por Manabí, según el CNE". El Universo (in Spanish). 27 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Asamblea aprobó proyecto de ley sobre La Manga del Cura". El Telégrafo (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 June 2017.
- Corte Constitucional del Ecuador. "Primer Suplemento Nº 994 del Registro Oficial del Ecuador". Registro Oficial del Ecuador (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 June 2017.