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A Republic of Colombia occurs as united states inside northwestern South America. These are attached northward & northward-west per Caribbean Sea, to the east by Venezuela and Brazil, to the south by Ecuador and Peru, and to the west by Panama and the Pacific Ocean.
History
Independent article: History of Colombia
In 1450 BC there was cultural activity inside "El Abra", touching Bogotá. Within 1000 BC amerindians developed the political technique of "cacicazgos" (A Cacique) with a pyramidical structure of power, especially the Muisca or Chibcha people. It would become a large political technique of South United states fallowing a Incas. Spanish explorers made a foremost exploration of the Caribbean littoral inside 1500 (Rodrigo de Bastidas). Around 1502 Christopher Columbus navigated near a coasts of Choco. Within 1508 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa started the conquest of the territory by Urabá. Within 1513 Vasco Nuñez de Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean that he called "The Sea of the South" & which fact would bring a Spaniards to Peru and Chile. Inside 1525, the number 1 European city in the American Continent was founded, Santa María la Antigua del Darién inside what is in todays world a Chocó Department. A independent humans in the Colombian territory were hundreds of tribes of the Chibchan and "Karib" or Caribbean peoples whom they assimilated or even even flushed across warfare, disease, exploitation, or conquest. It shortly established settlements that yet grew into a provinces which were a portion of the Captaincy General of New Granada. When it became the Viceroyalty in 1717, some other provinces of northwestern South United states of america come under its jurisdiction. In the 16th century Europeans brought slaves from Africa.
Though there were independent movements of rebellion since a super beginning of a Conquest & Colony, the independent a single arise around 1810, led by Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Paula Santander, that finally succeeded inside 1819 when a territory of the Viceroyalty of Future Granada became the Republic of Gran Colombia as a Confederation with Ecuador and Venezuela, Panama was a Colombian Department until 1903.
Internal political & territorial divisions led to the secession of Venezuela and Quito (today's Ecuador) in 1830. A and then-alleged "Department of Cundinamarca" received then a title "Nueva Granada" until 1856 when it became the "Confederación Granadina" (Granadine Confederation). Inside 1863 the "United States of Colombia" was created, until 1886 when it finally became a Republic of Colombia. Internal divisions remained, now and again igniting super all-fired civil wars and contributing to the United states-sponsored secession of Panama in 1903. A virtually all damn one wars occurred in a late 1940s & early Fifties, called La Violencia (the violence). It claimed a peoples of at least 180,000 Colombians. Its are causal agents for was principally tensions between partizan groups.
The fresh constitution was implemented within 1991 to replace a last 1886 document, after existence drafted per Constituent Assembly of Colombia. A constitutiaround involved key provisions on political, man, ethnic & gender rights, which keep close at h& been step by step put in practice, though surrounding contestation, uneven developments and reversal use persisted.
Within recent decades a united states has been plagued per results of the influential drug trade and by guerrilla insurgents such as FARC and illegal counter-insurgency paramilitary groups such as AUC, which along with more minor factions use at times been engaged around the all-fired internal conflict. A different irregular groups typically resort to kidnapping and drug smuggling to fund their causes, tend to work within big areas of the remote rural countryside & may every now & again disrupt communications and travel between different regions.
In the late 1990s an initiative named Plan Colombia was implemented by President Andrés Pastrana Arango with the goal of ending the armed conflict & promoting a hard anti-narcotic strategy. A virtually all controversial element of the Project is considered to become its anti-narcotic strategy, when it consists on the increase inside aerial fumigations to eradicate coca. This activity hwhen are under attack from either many sectors as these are claimed that fumigation as well damage settlements legal crops & has adverse health results upon people involved to the herbicides. Critics of the initiative likewise claim that the project is a military repressive approach to problems that have extra roots in the social inequalities of the united states.
When you took a presidency of Alvaro Uribe, elected on the promise to apply military pressure on the FARC & other irregular groups, the food and drug administration and its supporters claim occasionally security indicators have improved, showing a decrease within reported kidnappings (from 3700 in the season 2000 to 1441 in 2004) and of to a higher degree 48% within homicides between July 2002 and May 2005.
These are argued that these improvements keep close at hand favorite economic incubation. [http://www.dnp.gov.co/novedades_detalle.aspx?idn=31]
Analysts & critics around Colombia agree that there hwhen been a degree of pratical improvement in many of the mentioned fields, however the accurate reasons for the numbers themselves keep around periodically been disputed, likewise as their specific accuracy. A few opposition sectors have criticized the food and drug administration's security strategy, claiming that these are non plenty to solve Colombia's complex problems & that it has contributed to creating the favorable environment for the continuation of some human rights abuses.
Politics
Independent article: Politics of Colombia
Colombia occurs as republic where the executive branch dominates government structure. A president, elected together with a vice-president by popular vote for one quartet-season term, functions when two head of state and head of government.
Colombia's grind down parliament is the Congress or Congreso, which consists of the 102-seat Senate and the 166-seat Chamber of Representatives. Members of two houses come elected by popular vote to serve quadruplet-season terms.
Colombia occurs as member of the South American Community of Nations.
A Colombian judiciary underwent important reforms in the 1990s, and is undergoing the run of migration from either the inquisitorial system to an adversary system. Bogotá and parts of a coffee growing vicinity of Colombia use already adopted a opponent models, by owning the rest of the united states as a consequence lawsuit starting in January 1, 2006.
Geography
Independent article: Geography of Colombia
Placed northerly of South America (4 00 North, 72 00 W) & section of Caribbean South America. A merely South Western united states by owning coast inside two oceans (Atlantic or Caribbean Sea with 1,76Klick & Pacific Ocean with 1,448 km. Borders: N using a Caribbean Sea (sea boaders by using Jamaica, Haiti and Dominican Republic). West using Panama (225 km) & sea borders using Costa Rica both in the Pacific & Atlantic Ocean and Guatemala. South by using Ecuador (59Kilometre), Peru (1,496 km) & Brazil (1,643 km). East sustaining Brazil & Venezuela (2,05Kilometer).
Colombithe has a aggregate front yard of 1,138,910 kilometer² existence a 4th large united states inside South United states of america fallowing Brazil, Argentina and Peru and a seventh 1 in the American Continent. From either this locality, a l& has 1,038,700 kilometer² and the a body of water front yard has 100,210 kilometer². It has likewise an archipelago in a Caribbean sea (San Andres, Providencia & Santa Catalina) that forms the territory of the department San Andrés y Providencia.
A Colombian climate, though these are in the tropical locality is affected per Andes. These are tropical inside its coastlands & lowlands & cool in the mountains.
A Andes range is located in Colombia from either South-west (Ecuador boarder) toward Northeast (Venezuela boarder) & is divided in the Colombian Massif (Macizo Colombiano) in tercet ranges (East Range, Centre Range & West Range) that form ii hanker vale, Magdalena and Cauca follow by the lakes of the equivalent title. A greatest mountainside in Colombia is non in the Andes however in the Caribbean plain: Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta with its highest points known as Pico Cristobal Colon (5,775 m) & Pico Simon Bolivar (equivalent elevation).
A eastern section of Colombia, comprising to a higher degree half its territory, is plain & composed by savanna and rainforest, crossed by rivers belonging to the Amazon and Orinoco basins. A northern section, known as "Los Llanos" occurs as savannah area, mostly in the Orinoco basin (so known as too Orinoquía). A southern section, ordinarily known as Amazonía, is covered per Amazon rainforest & belongs mostly to the Amazon basin.
At a n & west of a Andes there are coastal plains, a Caribbean plains northward & the Pacific plains to the west.
Colombian Pacific plains come among a virtually all showery area in a globe, especially at the northwards (Chocó).
A 5 traditional natural regions come so: a Andean Region, the Caribbean Region, the Pacific Region, the Orinoquia Region and the Amazonia Region. A few humans likewise include an Insular Region, separated from a coastal regions.
Departments
Independent article: Departments of Colombia
Colombia is divided into 32 departments (departamentos):
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Amazonas (Leticia)
Antioquia (Medellín)
Arauca (Arauca)
Atlántico (Barranquilla)
Bolívar (Cartagena)
Boyacá (Tunja)
Caldas (Manizales)
Caquetá (Florencia)
Casanare (Yopal)
Cauca (Popayán)
Cesar (Valledupar)
Chocó (Quibdó)
Córdoba (Montería)
Cundinamarca (Bogotá)
Guainía (Puerto Inírida)
Guajira (Riohacha)
Guaviare (San José del Guaviare)
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Huila (Neiva)
Magdalena (Santa Marta)
Meta (Villavicencio)
Nariño (Pasto)
Norte de Santander (Cúcuta)
Putumayo (Mocoa)
Quindío (Armenia)
Risaralda (Pereira)
San Andrés and Providencia (San Andrés)
Santander (Bucaramanga)
Sucre (Sincelejo)
Tolima (Ibagué)
Valle del Cauca (Cali)
Vaupés (Mitú)
Vichada (Puerto Carreño)
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In addition, there exists 1 capital dominion (distrito capital), Bogotá D.C.
Economy
Independent article: Economy of Colombia
Fallowing getting decades of steadily incubation (typical GDP incubation exceeded 4% within a 1970-1998 cycle), Colombithe entered into a recession in 1999, & the recovery from either that recession has been hanker & painful. Colombia's economy suffers from either decrepit house servant & foreign require, austere government budgets, & good internal armed conflicts. A IMF Economic Indicators (published in Sept 21st 2005) forecast a Colombian GDP to email Me$112.3B within 2005. 2 of Colombia's leading exportation, petroleum and coffee, benefit for high trade good numbers worldwide. Recently oil exploration is required to offset declining boring. Completely exportation, imports & trade balance come inside record levels, & a influx of exportation dollars has resulted within material review of the Colombian peso, commodities trading slightly beneath 2300 pesos for USD$1 by September 2005.
Economic problems facing a united states range from either reforming a pension system to reducing high unemployment. Many international financial institutions keep around praised a economic however unpopular reforms introduced by Uribe, which include measures designed to reduce a public-sector deficit following Ii.5% of GDP in 2004. The food and drug administration's economic policy & its controversial democratic security strategy have engendered a growing feel of confidence in the economy, particularly in the business, & GDP growth in 2003 was among the greatest around Latin America.In 2005, Colombia is required to exportation is USD$25Billion.
Demographics
Independent article: Demographics of Colombia
Colombia has a diverse people that reflects its colourful history & the peoples that develop populated her from either ancient, to colonial & modern days. A historic amalgam of trine independent groups; Amerindians, Spanish colonists, and imported African slaves, are a basis of Colombia's todays demographics.
Race mixing between these 3 was far flung & has produced distinct groups that today be lot of the people. A united states's big ethnic class action come referred to as mestizos (55-60%) & come a symptom of intermingling between Spaniards and Amerindians. Whites come primarily descendent of a Spanish settler & European immigrants & It be the big minority (Xx to 25%) followed closely by Mulattos (14%) which are descended from either a unions of Spaniards & African slaves. A remainder of the people is unmixed descendent of African slaves (4%) & zambos who descend from either a mixture of African slaves & Amerindians (3%). Now, just just about 1% of the population may be identified when fully Amerindian on the basis of language & customs. There has as well been immigration from either either a Middle East, particularly Turks & Arabs, & sir thomas more recently from Perú & Ecuador.
A predominant religion around Colombia occurs as conservative form of Roman Catholicism (strong influence of the Opus Dei), although American-depending cults are making inroads.
Colombia is the third virtually all thickly settled united states around Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico.
Culture
Independent article: Culture of Colombia
Cinema of Colombia
List of Colombians
List of people on stamps of Colombia
List of universities in Colombia
Music of Colombia
Carnival in Colombia
Festivals in Colombia
Miscellaneous topics
Communications in Colombia
Foreign relations of Colombia
List of cities in Colombia
Military of Colombia
Palenquero
Anti-Colombianism
Transportation in Colombia
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