Its territorial extension is 589 km², its altitude is 575 meters above sea level and its climate is warm with an average temperature of 26°C.

Fruits such as grapes and bananas, from which 91% of the total output is produced in the department, stimulate its economy, which is considered the basis of the development of the region.

In 1811, Don Juan José Mesa donated the necessary land, on his farm "Matarredonda" for the settlement that was called the hacienda.

With monumental events, such as the burning of the San Andrés Town Center in 1950, and the hundreds of homicides in the still existing place El Puente De Los Decapitales, where more than 500 inhabitants were shot, beheaded, and hanged, most of them men who could be of voting or fighting age.

Other memories of the crumbling history, including Huila's red squares in 1950, is compiled in the literary work La Carnicería written in 2010.