Officially named San Juan de Pasto, it is a city located in the Atris valley near the Andes, at the slopes of the Galeras Volcano. It was founded in 1539 by conquistador Lorenzo de Aldana, in a territory once occupied by the Quillacinga culture.Pasto has an intriguing political history. The city was a royalist fortress during the Independence Campaign, and because its strong opposition it was nicknamed as the “Lioness of the Andes”, and was in turn sacked in 1822 by the independentists. Due to its geographical location and its political stance, the city kept itself isolated from the rest of Colombia for some time. Due to the civil wars at the beginning of the republican era, Pasto was briefly the capital of the country by decision of Leonardo Canal Gonzáles, a conservative general. In 1904, with the creation of the department of Nariño, Pasto was named its capital, and is now an important city focused mainly on commerce and services.