Cayambe

Cayambe is an agricultural service town (population 30,473 on the last census on November 24, 2001) in highland Ecuador. It lies at the foot of the Cayambe volcano. While the town is mainly peopled by mestizos, the surrounding rural population is primarily comprised of indigenous people who are mainly involved in subsistence agriculture, dairying and lumber procurement.

Cayambe's indigenous people of today are descendants of the pre-Inca Kayambi people. The Kayambi were resistant to Inca expansion and were only definitively conquered by Inca Huayna Capac after a bloody 20-year war. Not long afterwards, in the 16th century, the first Spanish conquerors arrived in the region. The Kayambi people adopted the Quichua language (sometimes also spelled Kichwa), a dialect of the Quechua language. Quichua survives in some of the hamlets today, while in others it has given way to Spanish.

The area hosts numerous flower plantations whose products are destined for the overseas cut-flower market. Toxic inputs and unsafe practices associated with these plantations have damaged the local environment and created health problems among the workers, including forms of cancer.

The town of Cayambe is the seat of the canton of Cayambe.