| “If
you want to see the Caribbean,
go to Cuba or Dominican Republic;
If you want to see the Pacific Ocean,
go to Chile;
If you want to see The Andes,
go to Ecuador;
If you want to see The Amazon,
go to Brasil;
If you want to see the pre-columbian cultures,
go to México or Perú;
BUT
if you want to see all these things together,
your destination is definitely Colombia.”
|
Area: |
1,138,910
sq km (439,735 sq mi.) |
| Largest
Cities: |
Medellín,
Cali, Barranquilla |
|
History
Colombia lies at the gateway to South America
and must have been a transit point for the first inhabitants who
migrated from North and Central America. The pre-columbian cultures
of Colombia have been little investigated as almost none of them
left behind spectacular monuments. However, their art reveals
a high degree of craftsmanship and their goldwork is the best
in the whole continent, both for the techniques used and for the
artistic design. Among, the most outstanding cultures were the
Tayrona, Sinú, Muisca, Quimbaya, Tolima, Calima,Tierradentro,
San Agustín, Nariño, and Tumaco. Three important archeological
sites were built by some of these cultures: San Agustín, Tierradentro
and Ciudad Perdida.
Spaniards
founded Santa Maria la Antigua del Darien in 1510, the first permanent
European settlement on the American mainland. In 1538 the Spaniards
established the colony of New Granada, the area's name until 1861.
After a 14-year struggle, in which Simón Bolívar's troops won
the battle of Boyacá in Colombia on Aug. 7, 1819, independence
was attained in 1824. Bolívar united Colombia, Venezuela, Panama,
and Ecuador in the Republic of Greater Colombia (1810-1830), but
lost Venezuela and Ecuador to separatists.
Bolívar's
Vice President, Francisco de Paula Santander, founded the Liberal
Party as the Federalists while Bolívar established the Conservatives
as the Centralists. Santander's presidency (1832-1936) re-established
order, but later periods of Liberal dominance (1849-1857 and 1861-1880),
when the Liberals sought to disestablish the Roman Catholic Church,
were marked by insurrection and even civil war. Rafael Nuñez,
in a 15-year-presidency, restored the power of the central government
and the church, which led in 1899 to a bloody civil war and the
loss in 1903 of Panama over ratification of a lease to the U.S
of the canal zone.
Geography
Colombia
stretches over approximately 1,140,000 sq. km, roughly equal to
the area of Portugal, Spain, and France put together. Colombia
occupies the northwestern end of South America, and is the only
country there with coasts on both the Pacific (1350 km long),
and the Atlantic (over 1600 km.) Three Andean ranges run north
and south through the western half of the country (about 45% of
the total territory.) The eastern part is a vast lowland which
can be generally divided into two regions: a huge open savannah
on the north, and the amazon in the south (400,000 sq. km aprox.)
Colombia
is a country of geographical contrasts and extremes. As well as
the features mentioned, it has such curiosities as the desert
of La Guajira, the peninsula in the most norh-eastern tip of the
country; the jungle of the pacific coast which holds one of the
world's rainfall records; and finally the Serranía de la Macarena,
an isolated mountain formation about 120 km. long, rising abruptly
from the eastern plains to some 2500 meters. Colombia also has
several small islands. The major ones are the archipelago of San
Andrés and Providencia in the Caribbean Sea, the Islas del Rosario
and San Bernardo along the Caribeean coast, and Gorgona and Malpelo
in the Pacific Ocean.
|
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