| Official Name: | Riohacha |
| Type: | District and city |
| Pushpin Map: | Colombia |
| Pushpin Label Position: | left |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Type1: | Region |
| Subdivision Type2: | Department |
| Subdivision Name: |  Colombia |
| Subdivision Name1: | Caribbean |
| Subdivision Name2: | La Guajira |
| Leader Title: | Mayor |
| Leader Name: | Rafael Ceballos Sierra (L)[1] |
| Established Title: | Foundation |
| Established Date: | 1545 |
| Founder: | Nikolaus Federmann |
| Area Total Km2: | 3120 |
| Area Urban Km2: | 25.53 |
| Population As Of: | 2023 Census |
| Population Total: | 222541 |
| Population Footnotes: | [2] [3] |
| Population Urban: | 126103 |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Population Density Urban Km2: | auto |
| Timezone: | Eastern Time Zone |
| Utc Offset: | -05 |
| Elevation M: | 5 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postal code |
| Postal Code: | 440001 |
| Area Code: | 57 + 5 |
| Blank Name: | Climate |
| Blank Info: | BSh |
| Website: | Official website |
| Footnotes: |
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Riohacha (pronounced as /es/; Wayuu: Süchiimma) is a city in the Riohacha Municipality in the northern Caribbean Region of Colombia by the mouth of the Ranchería River and the Caribbean Sea. It is the capital city of the La Guajira Department. It has a sandy beach waterfront.
Founded by conquistador Nikolaus Federmann in 1535, Riohacha was named after a local legend, "The legend of the Axe". Because of the powerful rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the area is mostly desertic. It is inhabited primarily by Amerindians, predominantly the Wayuu ethnic group. During colonial times, Riohacha was a very important port, as divers could retrieve vast numbers of pearls from the harbor.
In the second half of the 20th century, the city developed as one of Colombia's medium important, maritime commercial ports. It is also a multicultural center for La Guajira Department. The city is mentioned several times in novels written by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his important works are One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
The place name Riohacha has existed since the same period of the Spanish land conquest and colonization in La Guajira (1526-1536). There are three different hypotheses about its origin, all of them related to the exploration of the area of the mouth of a river in the middle part of the La Guajira Peninsula. The first hypothesis recounts the rescue that a young indigenous man makes of a lost and thirsty Spanish battalion, guiding them towards the encounter with the river; as a reward, the captain gives the native an axe and baptizes the place as El Río de La Hacha. The second hypothesis speaks of the same Spanish battalion whose Captain loses his emblematic axe when crossing said river; as a consolation he baptizes it Río de La Hacha. The third hypothesis documents the discovery of a beautiful axe buried on the river bank by a battalion of European explorers, who until now believed they were the first to arrive at that place. In this way, they called it Río de la Hacha.
The word Süchiimma means, in the Wayuunaiki language, Land of the River: Süchii (river) and Mma (land). The city is also known as Portal de Perlas (alluding to its pearl origin), the Capital of the Magical Arreboles (the most beautiful sunsets in the Colombian Caribbean) and the Mestiza del Nordeste (for its rich multiculturalism and the Trade Winds of the Northeast).
The Riohacha area was long inhabited by American Indians of the Wayuu culture, part of the larger Arawak group. The first European to visit the area was the Spanish sailor Alonso de Ojeda in 1498, though he never landed. A short time later, Juan de la Cosa, another Spanish explorer, landed on what is today called Cabo de la Vela (Cape of the Sail, so called because of its shape). In 1535, the German explorer Nikolaus Federmann founded a city with the name Nuestra Señora Santa Maria de los Remedios del Cabo de la Vela (Our Lady Saint Mary of the Remedies of the Cape of the Sail) at the place where de la Cosa had landed.
The Spanish discovered a vast amount of pearls in the city's area. This treasure frequently attracted raids by pirates. After the city was destroyed by a pirate raid, the city government relocated the city to the mouth of the Ranchería River, in order to confuse the pirates, and to give the city time to rebuild before the next attack. The new city, named Nuestra Señora de los Remedios del Río de la Hacha (Our Lady of the Remedies), expanded peacefully for a short time in its new location. Pirate attacks soon resumed. The next major attack, led by the famous English privateer Francis Drake, took place in 1569, when Drake pillaged the city searching for gold and pearls.
In the 18th century, Riohacha was incorporated to the Viceroyalty of New Granada as part of the province of Santa Marta. During the battles for independence from Spain, the port of Riohacha served many vessels fighting for Colombian and Venezuelan independence. Many Riohachans also served in the revolutionary navy, most notably Admiral José Prudencio Padilla, who would come to be considered a hero in the revolutions of Colombia and Venezuela.
In 1954, Riohacha City acquired municipality status, and in 1964 was declared capital of the new La Guajira Department.
Riohacha has one airport, the Almirante Padilla Airport. It serves airlines covering the route to and from the Colombian capital city Bogotá, the near cities of Valledupar and Santa Marta, and the Caribbean resort island of Aruba. In September 2016 the low-cost carrier Easy Fly initiated service between Riohacha and Barranquilla.[5]
Riohacha, owing to the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, has a semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh), which owing to the extremely torrid temperatures is not that far above an arid climate despite receiving as much as 546mm of rainfall per year. In stark contrast to temperate climates with even less rainfall that maintain lush environments, the hot temperatures cause a steppe-like environment. The rain falls almost exclusively in May and between August and November, and for the rest of the year there are a mere thirteen wet days out of 212 in an average year. Despite the lack of rainfall, humidity is high year round and adds to the uncomfortable heat.