Colombia Country Info - South America

Description and Basic Information

Colombia with its capital Bogotá is located in South America (Northern South America, bordering the Caribbean Sea). It covers some 1,138,911 square kilometres (slightly less than twice the size of Texas) with 45,013,000 citizens. Spanish is the language used by the people in Colombia. Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Brazil and Venezuela are bordering countries.

Colombia is the only country in South America with coastlines on both the North Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Traveling in Colombia is definitely worthwhile, however: it is really important to understand that there are still many areas of the country that are considered too dangerous for tourism. The climate is tropical along the coast and eastern plains; cold in the highlands. Much of Colombia is in the Andes, which means there is very nice mountainous scenery to be found. On the other hand, there are also nice beaches to be found in the lowlands. The currency of Colombia is the Colombian peso. Most banks and money changes will accept major world currencies such as the US dollar and the Euro. Be sensitive. Colombians are a proud people, and are proud of the progress they've made. Do not make jokes about the drug trade in Colombia, as it has ruined many innocent citizens' lives. Drink only bottled water outside the major cities. The water in major cities is safe. Anywhere else, never get drinks with ice cubes in them. Clothing, including lingerie is particularly well-regarded as high quality and very affordable. Leather garments, shoes and accessories are also of interest to foreigners.

Pictures from Capital (Bogotá)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Colombia

The landscape features flat coastal lowlands, central highlands, high Andes Mountains, eastern lowland plains. The average density of population is about 39 per km². The climate in Colombia can be described as tropical along coast and eastern plains with cooler in highlands. Potential threats by nature are highlands subject to volcanic eruptions or occasional earthquakes or periodic droughts.

To reach someone in Colombia dial +57 prior to a number. There are 7,500,000 installed telephones. And there are 42,160,000 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 850, 1900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".co". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 110V - 60Hz. The following list are the 33 regions/states in Colombia we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Colombian population grew at a rate of 1.18% (or by 523,391 citizens). With 231,636 deaths and 785,086 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 1.25%. -30,060 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Colombia: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.