IBAGUÉ, DIocese of. — Diocese and capital city of the department of Tolima, Colombia, South America.
It has an area of 30,000 sq. km., a population of 500,000, of whom 499,500 are Catholics, 56 parishes served by 86 diocesan priests and 13 regular clergy, one seminary, 5 male religious communities and 22 female (1949).
The diocese was erected by Pope Leo XIII on 20 June 1900. Its first bishop was Msgr. Ismael Perdomo. The cathedral is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. It is a suffragan of Bogotá.
The city of I., founded in 1550, was in 1854 the capital of the Republic of Colombia.
Bibl.: P. J. Mac Auley, s. V. in Cath. Enc., VII, p. 613; Enc. Eur. Am., XXVIII, pp. 799-800. Enrico Josi