American Capital of Culture
The non-governmental organization American Capital of Culture Organization selects one city in the Americas annually to serve as the American Capital of Culture for a period of one year. The organization claims the initiative is based closely on the European Capital of Culture program; it enjoys the backing of the hemisphere-wide Organization of American States, but the OAS is not involved in the selection process.
History and objectives
The American Capital of Culture initiative was born in 1997 and is aimed at all the countries of the Americas (América in Portuguese and in Spanish, the main language of most of the OAS's countries).
It has three major objectives:
- to be an instrument of Inter-American integration in the cultural sphere,
- to contribute to the peoples of the American continent knowing each other better, respecting its national and regional diversity, as well as highlighting their shared cultural heritage;
- and to promote the cities nominated as the American Capital of Culture in the American hemisphere and in the rest of the world, at the same time as building new bridges of cooperation with the other continents which have established cultural capitals.
The initiative was devised and is promoted by the American Capital of Culture Organization, a body set up in 1997, with the objective of promoting the American Capital of Culture and other, complementary cultural initiatives, which help to use culture as a key element in the development of the countries of the Americas.
Any territory of the countries of the American continent that wish to develop the objectives of the American Capital of Culture may apply to be chosen as American Capital of Culture.
"Territory" is deemed to be any physical area that has a political, geographical, administrative or historic unity. By way of example, territories could be cities, regions, provinces, states, nations, etc.
For the official presentation of the application, it is mandatory to complete all the sections of the Application Form, in any of the following four languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese or French.
List of dates of American Capital of Culture
| Year | City | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Mérida |  |
| 2001 | Iquique |  |
| 2002 | Maceió |  |
| 2003 | Panama City |  |
| Curitiba | | |
| 2004 | Santiago | |
| 2005 | Guadalajara | |
| 2006 | Cordoba |  |
| 2007 | Cuzco |  |
| 2008 | Brasília | |
| 2009 | Asunción |  |
| 2010 | Santo Domingo |  |
| 2011 | Quito |  |
| 2012 | São Luís | |
| 2013 | Barranquilla |  |
| 2014 | Colima | |
| 2015 | Mayagüez |  |
| 2016 | Valdivia | |
| 2017 | Mérida | |
| 2018 | Anzoátegui |  |
| 2019 | San Miguel de Allende | |