Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a sovereign state largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America.

A sovereign state is, in international law, a nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralised government that has sovereignty over a geographic area.

South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the northern hemisphere.

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Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and Peru.

Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a representative democratic republic in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Panama, officially called the Republic of Panama, is a country usually considered to be entirely in North America or Central America.

Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a federal republic located on the northern coast of South America.

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It shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island.

The Dominican Republic is a sovereign state occupying the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region.

Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a sovereign state located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea.

It is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments.

A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a "public matter" – not the private concern or property of the rulers – and where offices of state are elected or appointed, rather than inherited.

The territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples, with as most advanced the Muisca, Quimbaya and the Tairona.

Tairona was a Pre-Columbian culture of Colombia, which consisted in a group of chiefdoms in the region of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in present-day Cesar, Magdalena and La Guajira Departments of Colombia, South America, which goes back at least to the 1st century AD and had significant demographic growth around the 11th century.

The Muisca are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest.

The Spanish set foot on Colombian soil for the first time in 1499 and in the first half of the 16th century initiated a period of conquest and colonization, ultimately creating the New Kingdom of Granada, with as capital Santafé de Bogotá.

The New Kingdom of Granada, or Kingdom of the New Granada, was the name given to a group of 16th-century Spanish colonial provinces in northern South America governed by the president of the Audiencia of Santa Fe, an area corresponding mainly to modern-day Colombia, Panama and Venezuela.

Bogotá, officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá between 1991 and 2000, is the capital and largest city of Colombia, administered as the Capital District, as well as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca.

Bogotá, officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C. is the capital and largest city of Colombia administered as the Capital District, although often thought of as part of Cundinamarca.

Independence from Spain was acquired in 1819, but by 1830 the "Gran Colombia" Federation was dissolved.

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain, is a sovereign state largely located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe, with archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and several small territories on and near the North African coast.

Gran Colombia is a name used today for the state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central America from 1819 to 1831.

What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada.

The Republic of New Granada was a centralist unitary republic consisting primarily of present-day Colombia and Panama with smaller portions of today's Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, and Brazil.

The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation, and then the United States of Colombia, before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886.

The Granadine Confederation was a short-lived federal republic established in 1858 as a result of a constitutional change replacing the Republic of New Granada.

The United States of Colombia was the name adopted in 1861 by the Rionegro Constitution for the Granadine Confederation, after years of civil war.

Federalism is the mixed or compound mode of government, combining a general government with regional governments in a single political system.

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 2005 onward.

Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, and thereby possesses a rich cultural heritage.

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations.

The urban centres are mostly located in the highlands of the Andes mountains.

The Andes or Andean Mountains are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America.

Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines.

The Amazon rainforest, also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America.

Ecologically, it is one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, and the most densely biodiverse of these per square kilometer.

The term megadiverse country refers to any one of a group of nations that harbor the majority of Earth's species and high numbers of endemic species.

Colombia is a middle power and a regional actor with the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and is a member of the UN, the WTO, the OAS, the Pacific Alliance, and other international organizations.

In international relations, a middle power is a sovereign state that is not a superpower nor a great power, but still has large or moderate influence and international recognition.

An emerging market is a country that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not meet standards to be a developed market.

The Pacific Alliance is a Latin American trade bloc, formed by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, which all border the Pacific Ocean.

Colombia has a diversified economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run.