Colombia
listen)), officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish: 
República de Colombia (help·info)),[Note 1] is a country situated in the northwest of South America, bordered to the northwest by Panama; to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru;[11] and it shares maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Haiti.[12] It is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments.The territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of conquest and colonization ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, with its capital at Bogotá.[13] Independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 "Gran Colombia" had collapsed with the secession of Venezuela and Ecuador. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada. The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858), and then the United States of Colombia (1863), before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886.[14] Panama seceded in 1903.
Since the 1960s, the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict, which escalated in the 1990s, but then decreased from 2000 onward.[14]
Colombia is ethnically diverse, its people descending from the original native inhabitants, Spanish colonists, Africans originally brought to the country as slaves, and 20th-century immigrants from Europe and the Middle East, all contributing to a diverse cultural heritage.[15] This has also been influenced by Colombia's varied geography, and the imposing landscape of the country has resulted in the development of very strong regional identities. The majority of the urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains, but Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines.
Ecologically, Colombia is considered one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, and of these, the most biodiverse per square kilometer.[16][17] Colombia is a middle power with the fourth largest economy in Latin America,[4] is part of the CIVETS grouied economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run.
History
Main articles: History of Colombia and Timeline of Colombian history
Pre-Columbian era
Petroglyph in a cave in El Abra
By 10,500 BCE, the territory of what is now Colombia was inhabited by aboriginal people. Nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes existed near present-day Bogotá (at El Abra and Tequendama sites) which traded with one another and with cultures living in the Magdalena River Valley.[24] Between 5000 and 1000 BCE, hunter-gatherer tribes transitioned to agrarian societies; fixed settlements were established, and pottery appeared. Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, groups of Amerindians including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona developed the political system of "cacicazgos" with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques. The Muiscas inhabited mainly the area of what is now the Departments of Boyacá and Cundinamarca high plateau (Altiplano Cundiboyacense). They farmed maize, potato, quinoa and cotton, and traded gold, emeralds, blankets, ceramic handicrafts, coca and salt with neighboring nations. The Taironas inhabited northern Colombia in the isolated Andes mountain range of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.[25] The Quimbayas inhabited regions of the Cauca River Valley between the Occidental and Central cordilleras.[26] The Incas expanded their empire on the southwest part of the country.[27]
Spanish rule
Muisca raft. The figure refers to the ceremony of the legend of El Dorado. The legend and the gold would play a pivotal role in luring Europeans to New Granada during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Attack of the British army commanded by Admiral Edward Vernon on Cartagena de Indias. The battle resulted in a major defeat for the British Navy and Army during the War of Jenkins' Ear, 1739–48.[28]
Santa Marta was founded in 1525,[33] and Cartagena in 1533.[34] Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada led an expedition to the interior in April, 1536, and christened the districts through which he passed "New Kingdom of Granada". In August, 1538, he founded provisionally its capital near the Muisca cacicazgo of Bacatá, and named it "Santa Fe". The name soon acquired a suffix and was called Santa Fe de Bogotá.[35][36] Two other notable journeys by early conquistadors to the interior took place in the same period. Sebastián de Belalcázar, conqueror of Quito, traveled north and founded Cali, in 1536, and Popayán, in 1537;[37] from 1536–1539, German conquistador Nikolaus Federmann crossed the Llanos Orientales and went over the Cordillera Oriental in a search for El Dorado, the "city of gold".[38][39] The legend and the gold would play a pivotal role in luring the Spanish and other Europeans to New Granada during the 16th and 17th centuries.[40]
In 1542, the region of New Granada, along with all other Spanish possessions in South America, became part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, with its capital at Lima.[41] In 1547, New Granada became the Captaincy-General of New Granada within the viceroyalty.
In 1549, the Royal Audiencia was created by a royal decree, and New Granada was ruled by the Royal Audience of Santa Fe de Bogotá, which at that time comprised the provinces of Santa Marta, Rio de San Juan, Popayán, Guayana and Cartagena.[42] But important decisions were taken from the colony to Spain by the Council of the Indies.[43][44]
Indigenous peoples in New Granada experienced a decline in population due to conquest by the Spanish as well as Eurasian diseases, such as smallpox, to which they had no immunity.[45][46] With the risk that the land was deserted, the Spanish Crown sold properties to the governors, conquerors and their descendants creating large farms and possession of mines.[47] In the 16th century, Europeans began to bring slaves from Africa.[Note 3] [50] To protect and exploit the indigenous peoples, several forms of land ownership and regulation were established: resguardos, encomiendas and haciendas. Repopulation was achieved by allowing colonization by farmers and their families who came from Spain.[51][52]
In 1717 the Viceroyalty of New Granada was originally created, and then it was temporarily removed, to finally be reestablished in 1739. The Viceroyalty had Santa Fé de Bogotá as its capital. This Viceroyalty included some other provinces of northwestern South America which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalties of New Spain or Peru and correspond mainly to today's Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. So, Bogotá became one of the principal administrative centers of the Spanish possessions in the New World, along with Lima and Mexico City, though it remained somewhat backward compared to those two cities in several economic and logistical ways.[53][54]
The 18th-century priest, botanist and mathematician José Celestino Mutis was delegated by Viceroy Antonio Caballero y Góngora to conduct an inventory of the nature of the New Granada. Started in 1783, this became known as the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada which classified plants, wildlife and founded the first astronomical observatory in the city of Santa Fe de Bogotá.[55] In July 1801 the Prussian scientist Alexander von Humboldt reached Santa Fe de Bogotá where he met with Mutis. In addition, historical figures in the process of independence in New Granada emerged from the expedition as the astronomer Francisco José de Caldas, the scientist Francisco Antonio Zea, the zoologist Jorge Tadeo Lozano and the painter Salvador Rizo.[56][57]
Independence
The Battle of Boyacá was the decisive battle which would ensure the success of the liberation campaign of New Granada.
A movement initiated by Antonio Nariño, who opposed Spanish centralism and led the opposition against the viceroyalty,[60] led to the independence of Cartagena in November 1811,[61] and the formation of two independent governments which fought a civil war – a period known as La Patria Boba.[62] In 1811 the United Provinces of New Granada were proclaimed, headed by Camilo Torres Tenorio.[63][64] Despite the successes of the rebellion, the emergence of two distinct ideological currents among the liberators (federalism and centralism) gave rise to an internal clash which contributed to the reconquest of territory by the Spanish. The viceroyalty was restored under the command of Juan Sámano, whose regime punished those who participated in the uprisings. The retribution stoked renewed rebellion, which, combined with a weakened Spain, made possible a successful rebellion led by the Venezuelan-born Simón Bolívar, who finally proclaimed independence in 1819.[65][66] The pro-Spanish resistance was defeated in 1822 in the present territory of Colombia and in 1823 in Venezuela.[67][68][69]
The territory of the Viceroyalty of New Granada became the Republic of Colombia, organized as a union of the current territories of Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela, parts of Guyana and Brazil and north of Marañón River.[70] The Congress of Cúcuta in 1821 adopted a constitution for the new Republic.[71][72] Simón Bolívar became the first President of Colombia, and Francisco de Paula Santander was made Vice President.[73] However, the new republic was unstable and ended with the rupture of Venezuela and Ecuador in 1830.[74][75]
Changes in the borders of Colombia since independence until today.
Internal political and territorial divisions led to the secession of Venezuela and Ecuador in 1830.[74][75] The so-called "Department of Cundinamarca" adopted the name "Nueva Granada", which it kept until 1858 when it became the "Confederación Granadina" (Granadine Confederation). After a two-year civil war in 1863, the "United States of Colombia" was created, lasting until 1886, when the country finally became known as the Republic of Colombia.[76][80] Internal divisions remained between the bipartisan political forces, occasionally igniting very bloody civil wars, the most significant being the Thousand Days' War (1899–1902).
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