The canton of Cuenca
The 36 parishes of Cuenca
Use this map and guide to explore Cuenca's 15 urban and 21 rural parishes, with local history, sources, maps and bus connections.
36 parishes
Urban parishes
- BellavistaBellavista is one of Cuenca's northern urban parishes, a broad city-edge territory whose official story is more about neighborhood growth, streets and public infrastructure than a single visitor landmark. The name is shared by rural parishes elsewhere in Ecuador, so Cuenca's municipal urban ordinance is the anchor for this profile.Read, watch and explore →
- CañaribambaCañaribamba is a south-eastern urban parish whose name reaches back to Cañari place history while its current landscape is part of a dense city. It sits between Totoracocha, San Blas, Huayna Cápac and Monay in the municipal urban structure, making river and avenue connections as important as named landmarks.Read, watch and explore →
- El BatánEl Batán is a west-central urban parish on the Tomebamba side of Cuenca. Its name preserves a working landscape of mills, craft and water, while its current perimeter includes consolidated streets, public facilities and the western river corridor.Read, watch and explore →
- El SagrarioEl Sagrario is Cuenca's first urban parish and the civic and religious core of the historic center. Its small administrative area contains the Catedral Vieja, Plaza Calderón, traditional markets and streets where the city's colonial and republican layers meet.Read, watch and explore →
- El VecinoEl Vecino is a northern urban parish with a particularly legible barrio history. The Rafael María Arízaga corridor, the Rollo monument, the former hat-finishing factory and its murals connect everyday work, independence-era memory and the continuing life of a working neighborhood.Read, watch and explore →
- Gil Ramírez DávalosGil Ramírez Dávalos is the compact central parish named for the Spanish official who founded Santa Ana de los Ríos de Cuenca in 1557. Its story is told through the streets, civic buildings, churches and museums of the historic center, down to the banks of the Tomebamba.Read, watch and explore →
- Hermano MiguelHermano Miguel is Cuenca's fifteenth urban parish, created from the large El Vecino parish to recognize the city's Lasallian educator and saint. It is a newer northern urban administrative area whose identity combines the Santo Hermano Miguel devotion, schools, neighborhood parks and growth toward the Machángara edge.Read, watch and explore →
- Huayna CápacHuayna Cápac occupies the river plain south of the Tomebamba and around the Yanuncay confluence. Its identity links the former Ejido and later urban expansion with university, museum, park and river landscapes, including places that visitors may know better than the parish name.Read, watch and explore →
- MachángaraMachángara is the large eastern urban parish named for one of Cuenca's four principal rivers. Its territory includes established neighborhoods and the expanding eastern edge, where the river, Panamericana, conservation areas and new urbanization meet.Read, watch and explore →
- MonayMonay is an eastern urban parish shaped by housing programs, commerce, river edges and neighborhood organization. It is a good example of Cuenca's later growth: the name belongs to an administrative parish, while Tomebamba, Bosque de Monay and Monay Shopping identify particular sectors and destinations within or around it.Read, watch and explore →
- San BlasSan Blas is the historic eastern counterpart to San Sebastián. The urban parish grew from a colonial doctrine for Indigenous residents beyond the Inca road, while the named church and park remain a visible heritage anchor inside a larger modern parish.Read, watch and explore →
- San SebastiánSan Sebastián is the historic western parish of Cuenca. Its traditional barrio grew at the edge of the early Spanish grid around an ermita, a boundary cross and later the church and plaza; the present urban parish extends beyond that named barrio, so the two should be kept distinct.Read, watch and explore →
- SucreSucre is a south-western urban parish whose name honors Antonio José de Sucre. The parish includes the historic San Roque area, former riverside quintas and busy modern corridors; the old neighborhood names and today's parish limits overlap but are not the same.Read, watch and explore →
- TotoracochaTotoracocha is an eastern urban parish whose name recalls a landscape of totora, pools and wet ground. Its twentieth-century growth is closely tied to planned housing and neighborhood parks, and today it is a large, busy residential area.Read, watch and explore →
- YanuncayYanuncay is a large south-western urban parish named by the river that crosses and helps define it. Its public identity is carried by river paths, bridges, neighborhood parks, Don Bosco and Loja corridors and the everyday work of residents who participate in city planning.Read, watch and explore →
Rural parishes
- BañosBaños is a rural parish on Cuenca's southwest side whose identity brings together hot springs, hillside landscapes, farming and devotion to the Virgen de Guadalupe. The parish government's own account describes precolonial and Cañari roots, colonial mining around Minas, and republican recognition in 1824, later confirmed as a rural parish of Cuenca on September 1, 1852.Read, watch and explore →
- ChauchaChaucha is a large, remote rural parish in Cuenca's southwest, in the sub-Andean zone of the western cordillera. Its local identity is shaped by dispersed communities, agriculture, biodiversity and water, with recent public work presenting coffee and community tourism as ways to connect production, heritage and place.Read, watch and explore →
- ChecaCheca, also known as Jidcay, is a northern rural parish of Cuenca that grew from a former caserío of Sidcay. Its recorded parish foundation is April 22, 1897; local accounts pair the civic history with San Andrés celebrations, river valleys and archaeological traces at Zhinglia.Read, watch and explore →
- ChiquintadChiquintad is a northeastern rural parish whose documented story reaches back to a 1577 Cabildo record and whose civil parish recognition dates to April 27, 1878. Its two local explanations for the name—“ruins of fire” and the Cañari term Arucana—sit alongside San Marcial devotion, highland water infrastructure and a growing nature-and-sport identity.Read, watch and explore →
- CumbeSan Luis de Cumbe is a southern rural parish where highland valleys, farming and community memory meet older Cañari and Inka histories. Its parish account connects the name to a southern mitmaq group associated with fine weaving and records Cumbe's separation from San Bartolomé as a parish of Cuenca in 1850.Read, watch and explore →
- El ValleEl Valle is a southeast rural parish whose agricultural and livestock production supplies Cuenca and whose center combines market life, popular celebrations and views over the city. Its official planning documents also preserve a long record of land, parish and community history.Read, watch and explore →
- LlacaoLlacao is a rural parish northwest of Cuenca whose name is explained through Kichwa words associated with separating maize from its stalk at harvest. Its landscape combines rounded hills and quebradas with the Pachamama/El Tablón plateau, religious sites and archaeological traces linked to older Cañari and Inka routes.Read, watch and explore →
- MolleturoMolleturo is an extensive rural parish on Cuenca's western side, stretching across highland, mountain and lower, warmer environments. Its public identity as “the parish of water” is grounded in rivers, lakes, cascades and coastal hot springs, while the Qhapaq Ñan and Paredones connect that landscape to Cañari and Inka history.Read, watch and explore →
- NultiNulti is a rural parish of Cuenca with a strong food and landscape identity. Its wood-fired bread, farming communities, devotional traditions and the high ground of El Plateado show the parish through everyday work as well as its views.Read, watch and explore →
- Octavio Cordero PalaciosOctavio Cordero Palacios, historically Santa Rosa, is a northern rural parish whose identity combines Indigenous and agricultural history, adobe building traditions, paja toquilla work and the memory of the writer whose name it adopted.Read, watch and explore →
- PacchaSan Francisco de Paccha is an eastern rural parish known in the Cuenca material as a parish of viewpoints. Its central church and plaza, the Virgen Dolorosa procession, woven and earthen crafts, and ridge landscapes connect faith, making and place.Read, watch and explore →
- QuingeoSan Pedro de Quingeo is a southeastern rural parish whose parish center was declared Ecuadorian Cultural Heritage in 2009. Its architecture, river landscape, community traditions and archaeological record make it one of Cuenca's clearest places for connecting vernacular life with deeper history.Read, watch and explore →
- RicaurteRicaurte is a rural parish of Cuenca whose identity is documented through its 1910 parishization, the San Carlos patron and the Fiesta del Cuy. Its northern route landscape links the city with the Machángara corridor and Llacao, while irrigation and place names show how agriculture, water and local memory shape community life.Read, watch and explore →
- San JoaquínSan Joaquín links the Yanuncay valley and the Macizo del Cajas biosphere landscape with a long-lived craft and farming economy. Its most distinctive cultural thread is basketry made from plant fibres, alongside gardens, water, food and community routes.Read, watch and explore →
- Santa AnaSanta Ana is an eastern rural parish of Cuenca organized around a central church and plaza and a network of 21 communities. Its agricultural and livestock life, paja toquilla work, water organization, Inti Raymi and community festivities provide a grounded profile of rural Cuenca.Read, watch and explore →
- SayausíSayausí is a rural parish on Cuenca's western edge whose identity joins community memory, farming and a close relationship with the Cajas landscape. Its parish government presents it as a gateway to Parque Nacional Cajas, while its history page describes older Cañari and Inca route connections.Read, watch and explore →
- SidcaySidcay is one of Cuenca's older rural parishes and a former administrative source for neighboring parishes. Its present-day identity combines parish and neighborhood life, food traditions, hills and river landscapes, and small-scale adventure tourism.Read, watch and explore →
- SinincaySinincay is a northwestern rural parish where brickmaking, marble work, roof tiles, hat weaving and farming meet a growing tourism program. Its official pages frame tourism as a living encounter with local work, food, landscapes and community traditions.Read, watch and explore →
- TarquiTarqui is a southern rural parish shaped by open highland plains, farming and dairy production, with a strong layer of place-name memory. Francés Urco and the Tarqui micro-basin connect local landscape to the history of the French Geodesic Mission and to present rural routes.Read, watch and explore →
- TuriTuri is Cuenca's hilltop rural viewpoint, known locally as the balcony of the city. Its parish center joins a panoramic lookout and church with Indigenous and mestizo cultural memory, nearby hills and a growing set of nature, food and recreation businesses.Read, watch and explore →
- Victoria del PorteteVictoria del Portete is a southern Cuenca parish whose name and landscape are tied to the 1829 Battle of Portete de Tarqui. Today its rural identity combines dairy and livestock production, community celebrations, historic routes and a broad highland valley.Read, watch and explore →
No parishes match this search.