There are two possible origins of its name. One of them is taken from the indigenous people who inhabited the foot of the Zippa mountain range, "Chicaquicha", which means "our large wall" or according to other sources, "city of our father", and until the 19th century the name was written beginning with the letter C. The other possibility refers to the name "zipa", a title conferred to the governor of the village and to his wife, the latter known by the title of "Quira", and thus "Zipa-Quirá". The native people who lived there settled in the upper part of the mine called "Puebla Viejo", now known as Santiago Pérez, approximately 200 meters above the present site of the city, and where early Spanish descriptions (1537) speak of "seeing a few hundred dwellings with a population of 12,000 people".