🇪🇨 Ecuador · Sierra (Andean Highlands)
Riobamba, the 'Sultana de los Andes', is one of those Ecuadorian cities that breathe history. Capital of Chimborazo province and once a central figure in the birth of the country, it spreads its stately squares, churches and republican architecture across 2,750 meters of altitude, in the heart of the highlands. Walking its center, between the Cathedral, Parque Maldonado and the markets, is to look in on quiet Andean life and on a past that made it the 'cradle of Ecuadorian nationhood'.
But Riobamba is, above all, the gateway to Chimborazo: the snowcapped volcano that watches over it from its 6,263 meters, the highest mountain in Ecuador and the point on the Earth's surface furthest from the planet's center. Climbing to its refuges, watching vicuñas graze on the páramo, exploring the wildlife reserve that protects it or, for the bold, attempting its summit are experiences that mark any trip through the Andes. And at the city's feet wait the legendary Devil's Nose train, the Colta lake with the Balbanera church and the craft villages around it.
This guide covers Riobamba with a practical, warm eye: what to see in its historic center, how to visit Chimborazo and its reserve, what the railway feat of the Nariz del Diablo is, where to sleep and eat, how to get around and how to look after yourself against the altitude and the highland cold. With a bit of planning, warm clothes and an appetite for history and mountains, Riobamba hands you some of the most authentic days of any trip through Ecuador's highlands.
Riobamba's story is one of a birth, a destruction and a rebirth. Long before the Spanish, the region was inhabited by the Puruhá peoples and, in its area, stood the old Liribamba, an important Andean settlement. After the conquest, Riobamba was one of the first cities founded by the Spanish in what is now Ecuador: tradition places its founding by Diego de Almagro in 1534, on the site of the old city (today's Villa La Unión, next to the Colta lake). There, in its Balbanera church, rose what is considered the first Catholic church in Ecuador. That 'old' Riobamba was flattened by a devastating earthquake in 1797, which forced the city to be moved and refounded on its present site, the Tapi plain. In the 19th century Riobamba played a decisive role in the country's formation: in 1830 it hosted the constituent assembly that issued Ecuador's first Constitution, which is why it is known as the 'cradle of Ecuadorian nationhood'. Later, the arrival of the trans-Andean railway —with the celebrated engineering feat of the Nariz del Diablo— consolidated its importance as the transport hub of the central highlands. Today, at the foot of Chimborazo, Riobamba keeps its historic, stately character. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The province of Ecuador's highest volcano and of the point farthest from the center of the Earth: Puruhá land around the ancient Liribamba, cradle of Riobamba —the 'Sultana of the Andes' and seat of the first Constituent Assembly of 1830—, of the Devil's Nose railway and of the vicuña páramo of Chimborazo.
Read the history of Chimborazo →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Long before Spanish Riobamba existed, the region of today's Chimborazo was the territory of the Puruhá people, one of the most important Andean cultures of Ecuador's central highlands. The Puruhá lived from high-altitude farming, herding and trade, and had developed a complex social organization, with lordships and settlements spread across the valleys at the foot of the great Chimborazo volcano.
In this region stood Liribamba, an important Andean settlement that some consider a center of significance for the Puruhá and, later, within the Inca framework. With the expansion of the Tahuantinsuyo northward in the 15th century, the area was absorbed into the Inca Empire, which left its mark on roads, organization and culture, layered over Puruhá traditions without erasing them entirely.
That deep Indigenous root is still present in Chimborazo province, one of the provinces with the largest Indigenous population in Ecuador and a strong Kichwa identity. The markets, the rural communities, the festivals and the crafts of the region are direct heirs of that long Andean past, older than the arrival of the Europeans. Understanding Riobamba means remembering that its history did not begin with the Spanish founding, but much earlier, in the world of the Puruhá and old Liribamba.
Riobamba holds a place of honor in Ecuadorian history as one of the first cities founded by the Spanish on what is now its territory. Tradition places its founding in 1534, at the hands of the conquistador Diego de Almagro, in the context of the Spanish arrival in these lands after the conquest of the Inca Empire. The city was born on the site of the old Riobamba, next to the Colta lake (today's Villa La Unión), not where it stands now.
In that first settlement, on the shore of the Colta lake, rose the Balbanera church, considered by tradition the first Catholic church built in Ecuador. Its modest but historic stone facade is a symbol of the beginning of Hispanic and Christian presence in the country, and it can still be visited today, a survivor of centuries of history and earthquakes.
Through the colonial period, that old Riobamba grew as an important highland center, with its Indigenous population, its encomiendas, its textile workshops and its religious life. It was a prosperous, well-established city, until a natural event completely changed its fate at the end of the 18th century.
On 4 February 1797, a devastating earthquake shook Ecuador's central highlands and changed the history of Riobamba forever. The quake, one of the most catastrophic in the region's colonial history, almost completely destroyed the old Riobamba, next to the Colta lake, and caused an enormous number of deaths and a great deal of damage across the area. The prosperous city of the colonial era was left in ruins.
Since rebuilding the city on the same spot was impossible, the decision was taken to move it to a safer new site: the Tapi plain, where today's Riobamba stands. There the city was refounded with a regular grid layout, typical of the urban planning of the period, which its historic center still keeps.
Valuable elements were rescued from the old city, such as the carved stones of some churches: part of the stone facade of today's Riobamba Cathedral comes precisely from the destroyed Riobamba, a moving way of joining the old city to the new. So the 1797 earthquake marked a before and after: the end of colonial Riobamba beside Colta and the birth of republican Riobamba on the Tapi plain, which would soon play a decisive role in the country's history.
Riobamba's most glorious role in history came a few decades after its refounding, at the dawn of independence. After Gran Colombia dissolved, Ecuador was constituted as an independent country, and Riobamba was precisely the city chosen to seal that birth: in 1830 it hosted the constituent assembly that drafted and enacted Ecuador's first Constitution.
In that assembly, gathered in Riobamba, the legal and political foundations of the new state were laid: the country's name, its form of government and its fundamental institutions were defined. For having been the seat of this founding event, Riobamba received the honorable title it is known by: 'cradle of Ecuadorian nationhood'. It is a source of deep pride for the city and a central chapter of its identity.
Through the 19th century, republican Riobamba established itself as an important political, cultural and economic center of the central highlands. Prominent figures of national life came from it, and its stately architecture —parks, churches, mansions, public buildings— testified to that splendor. The city, nicknamed the 'Sultana de los Andes', lived as one of the main urban centers of the young Ecuador, proud of its founding past.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a colossal project put Riobamba back at the center of Ecuadorian history: the construction of the trans-Andean railway, which set out to link the highlands with the coast, connecting Quito and Guayaquil by rail. It was a work of enormous technical ambition, pushed above all during the government of Eloy Alfaro, that had to cross the difficult geography of the Ecuadorian Andes.
The greatest challenge of the whole work was the so-called Nariz del Diablo, an imposing, almost vertical rock face in the Sibambe-Alausí area that looked impassable for a train. The engineers came up with a bold solution: a system of zigzag tracks that lets the train climb (or descend) the slope by going forward and reversing along successive stretches, gaining height step by step. Building this section was extraordinarily difficult and cost the lives of numerous workers, many of them brought from far away for the titanic undertaking.
The arrival of the railway consolidated Riobamba as an important transport hub of the central highlands and energized its economy. Over time the train —and especially the spectacular Nariz del Diablo stretch— became a tourist attraction and a symbol of the national effort to integrate the country. In recent decades Ecuador's rail service went through phases of tourism rehabilitation, but also suspensions: the train was stopped for several years, until in June 2025 the Alausí–Sibambe route was reactivated and today it once again carries visitors along the famous zigzag. Since its operation has been on and off, it is always wise to reconfirm the times before traveling, but the Nariz del Diablo remains one of the great feats of railway engineering in the Americas.
Riobamba's history is inseparable from Chimborazo's, the snowcapped giant that watches over it from its 6,263 meters. The highest mountain in Ecuador —and, because the Earth bulges at the equator, the point on the planet's surface furthest from its center— has always been a powerful presence for the peoples of the region, from the Puruhá to today's riobambeños. It is no accident that the whole province carries its name.
Chimborazo also drew the attention of science: the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt tried to climb it in the early 19th century, at a time when it was believed to be the highest mountain in the world, and his observations contributed to the volcano's worldwide fame. Later, the Englishman Edward Whymper achieved the first documented ascent in 1880. Today its slopes are protected by the Reserva de Producción de Fauna Chimborazo, a refuge for the vicuñas reintroduced to the páramo.
Riobamba, the 'Sultana de los Andes', carries in its present the traces of all that history: the Puruhá and Inca past, the Spanish founding and Balbanera, the earthquake and the refounding, the Constitution of 1830, the railway and the Nariz del Diablo, and the protecting shadow of Chimborazo. Walking its historic center today, looking out at the volcano or visiting the Colta lake means covering, in a single trip, the different layers of Ecuador's history. That historical density, together with the beauty of its Andean surroundings, is what makes Riobamba such a special destination.