Loja Province - Ecuador

The Province of Loja is one of the 24 provinces that make up the Republic of Ecuador, located in the south of the country, in the geographical area known as the interandean region or sierra. Its administrative capital is the city of Loja, which is also its largest and most populated city. It occupies a territory of about 11,066 km², being the ninth province of the country by extension. It limits with the provinces of El Oro to the northwest; with the province of Zamora Chinchipe to the east; with the province of Azuay to the north; to the south with the Peruvian provinces of Sullana and Ayabaca and to the west with the provinces of Zarumilla and Tumbes, also belonging to Peru.

In the Lojano territory, 453,966 people live, according to the last national census (2010), being the tenth most populated province in the country. The Province of Loja is constituted by 16 cantons, from which their respective urban and rural parishes are derived. According to the latest territorial order, the province of Loja will belong to a region also comprised by the provinces of El Oro and Zamora Chinchipe, although it is not officially formed, called the Southern Region.

It is one of the most important administrative, economic, financial and commercial centers in southern Ecuador. The development of the industry in the province, in general, was based on the manual skills of its inhabitants. It has a very unique importance for the history of southern Ecuador, since it is a midpoint between the coast and the Amazon, since ancestral time it was established as a meeting point between cultures, merchants and events of religious connotation.

He had different migratory periods from the mountains such as avocados and macacatos. Later it was conquered by the Incas under Tupac Yupanqui. The Spanish colonization occurred when it was raised in 1546, the city of Loja with the name of La Zarza, under the order of Gonzalo Pizarro; during that period the maximum entity and precursor of the province would be the Corregimiento de Loja. After the independence war and the annexation of Ecuador to the Gran Colombia, the Province of Loja is created, one of the 7 first provinces of Ecuador