Colombia

Why Colombia works

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, sits in South America with insular regions extending into North America, its mainland bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east, Brazil to the southeast, Peru and Ecuador to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. The country divides into 32 departments, with Bogotá, the Capital District, serving as its largest city and main financial and cultural hub, alongside major urban centres including Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, and Cartagena. Its geography spans six distinct natural regions: the Andes, the Pacific coast, the Caribbean coast, the Llanos plains, the Amazon rainforest, and an insular area across both oceans.

Colombia's location made it a corridor for early human movement between Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, the Andes, and the Amazon basin; the oldest archaeological finds, from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley, date to the Paleoindian period between roughly 18,000 and 8000 BCE, and pottery found at San Jacinto, dated to 5000–4000 BCE, is among the oldest discovered anywhere in the Americas. Spanish exploration began with Alonso de Ojeda's arrival at the Guajira Peninsula in 1499, followed by the founding of Santa Marta in 1525 and Cartagena in 1533; conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founded the settlement that became Bogotá in 1538, naming the surrounding region the "New Kingdom of Granada," while Sebastián de Belalcázar founded Cali in 1536 and Popayán in 1537.

Colombia is considered the world's most biodiverse country by area, ranking first in bird species with more than 1,900 recorded — more than Europe and North America combined — and holding roughly 10% of all mammal species and 18% of all bird species on Earth. It also ranks first in orchid species and in endemic butterfly species, second in overall biodiversity behind only Brazil, a country roughly seven times its size, and second in freshwater fish diversity, with an estimated 40,000 to 45,000 plant species found across its territory.

East of the Andes, the savanna of the Llanos forms part of the Orinoco River basin, giving way in the far southeast to Amazon rainforest; together these lowlands cover more than half of Colombia's territory but hold less than 6% of its population, while the Caribbean coast, home to nearly 22% of Colombians and the port cities of Barranquilla and Cartagena, is mostly low-lying plain punctuated by the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. Colombia's climate is tropical but varies by elevation across its six regions: below 1,000 metres, covering about 82.5% of the country, temperatures stay above 24°C, cooling through temperate and cold zones up the Andes to permanent snow and ice above 4,000 metres.

Colombian cuisine varies widely by region and draws on rice, maize, potato, cassava, and a wide range of tropical fruit such as lulo, guava, and passionfruit, alongside beef, chicken, pork, and seafood. Ajiaco, a potato and corn soup, and sancocho de gallina, a chicken soup with root vegetables, are widely eaten dishes, alongside arepas, corn cakes served in many forms, and bandeja paisa, a substantial regional main course; coastal areas add dishes such as carimañolas and costeño cheese to the mix. Colombia is also among the world's largest consumers of fruit juice, a habit that reflects the sheer range of fruit grown across its climate zones. Breads and snacks such as pandebono, aborrajados, and almojábanas round out a table that shifts noticeably between the Andean interior and the Caribbean and Pacific coasts.

• Colombia — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text adapted from the linked articles under CC BY-SA 4.0; edited for length.

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