Awá Kwaiker - Settlements

The total area of settlement is about 3,500 square kilometers, but it is crossed by the road to Barbacoas and Tumaco, along which live about 20,000 mestizos and Blacks. The Awá Kwaiker live along the Gualcala, Vegan, Güisa, Nulpe, and San Juan rivers, forming small nuclei of dispersed dwellings. This residence pattern is the only system that guarantees equilibrium in the poor and fragile ecosystem. In Colombia and Ecuador there are about seventy settlements, averaging no more than 100 inhabitants except in places with infrastructure such as bridges, small health centers, or schools, where the population may be more densely concentrated.