Chigua was formerly recognized as a genus of cycads in the family Zamiaceae containing two species described in 1990.
It was re-described as a single species in the genus Zamia in 2009.
The scholarly use of Chigua for a cycad was first applied to a plant collected in 1918 by Francis W. Pennell in northern Colombia.
The Type was not reported again until re-located by Rogrigo Bernal in 1986.
Dennis Stevenson described the genus and two species, C. restrepoi and C. bernalii, in 1990.