[2] The municipality is located south of the department of Tolima, in the foothills of the Central mountain range, branch of Colombian Andes.

The uprooting of mountains in what today it comprises the jurisdiction of Planadas began when the governor of the Tolima, through decree 1018 of 1920 established the penal and agricultural colony in the region, that designated Sur de Ata.

In 1932 the Spanish missionary jesuita, Fermín Larrazábal, advised to a group of explorers to settle a town in the banks of the river Atá just in a plain where today is located the municipal seat of Planadas.

Curiously the founders of Planadas were a mix of antioqueños and local huilenses today exists paisas and opitas customs and idioms .

It fits to do a brief retrospective, to say that the territory that conforms Planadas was discovered in the month of October 1538 by patrol soldiers of Don Sebastián de Bel alcázar that his native settlers were the Indians Ataes, Cuiras, Guagua and Patae, of the tribe of the Paeces; and also was the land of the Cacique Yucairo.