Cayambe is the name of a volcano located in the eastern branch of the Ecuadorian Andes, in Pichincha province some 70 km north of Quito. Its exact location is 0.029 N 77.985 W and its elevation is 5,785 meters. It is the third highest mountain in Ecuador. It was first scaled by British climber Edward Whymper and his two Italian guides and companions Juan Antonio and Luis Carrel in 1880, and is a favourite of mountain climbers today. Close to its summit, at 4,600m, is the highest point in the world crossed by the Equator. Cayambe, which has a permanent snow cap, is a Holocene compound volcano which has not erupted in historical times. The volcano is located within the Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserve.
Cayambe is also the name of the agricultural service town (pop. approx. 120,000) nearest the volcano. While the town is mainly peopled by mestizos, the surrounding rural population is primarily comprised of descendants of the pre-Incan Kayambi indigenous people who are mainly involved in subsistence agriculture, dairying and lumber procurement. The Kayambi were resistant to Inca expansion and were only definitively conquered by Huayna Capac after a bloody 20-year war, shortly before the first Spanish conquerors arrived in the region in the 16th century. The Quichua indigenous language, sometimes also spelled Kichwa , a dialect of Quechua, survives in some of the hamlets today, while in others Quichua has given way to Spanish.
The area hosts numerous flower plantations destined for the overseas cut-flower market, whose toxic inputs and unsafe practices have damaged the local environment and created health problems among the workers.
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