Santander

Port and capital of the autonomous community of Cantabria, northern Spain, on the Bay of Biscay; population (2001) 180,700. Industries include chemicals, textiles, vehicles, and shipyards. Santander was sacked by the French marshal Nicolas Soult in 1808, and was largely rebuilt after a fire in 1941. Palaeolithic cave wall paintings of bison, wild boar, and deer were discovered at the nearby cave of Altamira in 1879.

Santander

Department in Colombia, lying to the south of the department of Norte de Santander; area 32,193 sq km/12,430 sq mi; population (1996) 1,811,741. The capital is Bucaramanga. Santander is a fertile agricultural area with coffee, tobacco, and cereals as its main crops. The De Mares oilfields lie in the west of the department on the Magdalena River, near the town of Barrancabermeja; oil is piped from here to the Caribbean port of Cartagena.

At Socorro in the department of Santander, the first uprisings against Spanish rule took place in the 1780s, in the form of protests against poverty. The area was a stronghold of revolutionary forces during the wars of liberation.