| kəlŭmˈbēə, Span. kōlōmˈbyä, officially Republic of Colombia, republic (1995 est. pop. 36,200,000), 439,735 sq mi (1,138,914 sq km), NW South America. Bogotá is the capital and largest city. The only South American country with both a Caribbean and a Pacific coastline, Colombia is bounded on the northwest by Panama, on the northeast by Venezuela, on the south by Ecuador and Peru, and on the southeast by Brazil. Land Colombia has both torrid jungles and majestic, snowcapped mountains. By far the most prominent physical features are the three great Andean chains that fan north from Ecuador. The Andean interior is the heart of the country, where in pre-Columbian days the highly advanced Chibcha lived. It has the largest concentration of population and is the area of large-scale cultivation of coffee, Colombia's major crop. Of the three principal Andean ranges, the Western Cordillera is of the least economic importance. One of Colombia's major cities, Cali, lies just east of the range, in the upper Cauca valley. The Central Cordillera has a towering chain of volcanoes (e.g., Tolima) and is the divide between the valleys of the Magdalena and the Cauca rivers. It was until the 19th cent. an undeveloped region, but with improved transportation, the introduction of coffee culture, and the exploitation of high-grade coal reserves, its cities of Medellín and Manizales have become the economic and industrial core of the republic. A third major city in the Central Cordillera is Armenia. The Eastern Cordillera is the longest chain. Its western slopes yield coffee, and in its intermontane basins grains and cattle are raised. The area is rich in iron, coal, and emeralds. Among the leading cities of the highland basins are Tunja, Bucaramanga, and Cúcuta, in addition to Bogotá. In the eastern foothills of the Andes some hundred miles east of the capital lies a vast supply of light crude oil. Discovered in 1992, the oil fields constitute the largest find in the Americas since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay field (1969) and have revitalized Colombia's petroleum industry. To the east of the Andes lies more than half of Colombia's territory, a vast largely undeveloped lowland. The plains are crossed by navigable rivers, tributaries of the Orinoco and Amazon systems. The northern section consists of savannas (the llanos), which are devoted to a large extent to cattle and sheep grazing. Villavicencio, at the region's western end, is its major urban center. The dense jungles of the extreme southeast are of negligible economic importance. Leticia is the country's southernmost town, and its only port on the Amazon River. A fourth mountain chain, the Cordillera del Chocó, runs parallel to the Pacific N of Buenaventura. The range's slopes yield dyewoods and hardwoods, rubber, tagua nuts (vegetable ivory) and other forest products, and gold and platinum. On the Pacific are the ports of Buenaventura and Tumaco, terminus of a pipeline from the oil-rich area of Putumayo across the mountains. Colombia's chief ocean ports, however, lie on the Caribbean coast to the north: Santa Marta, Cartagena, and Barranquilla. At Mamonal, adjacent to Cartagena, is the terminus of the pipeline from the Barrancabermeja oil fields. In the north, separating the La Guajira peninsula from the rest of the country, is the magnificent Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which contains Colombia's highest peak, Pico Cristóbal (18,947 ft/5,775 m). The difficult terrain in Colombia limits the availability of road and rail transportation and makes air and water travel especially important. Administratively, the country is divided into 23 departments. People About 60% of Colombia's population are mestizos, and some one fifth are of European descent. Indigenous peoples, who account for only about 1% of today's population, live on the edge of some of the major cities and in remote areas. About 15% of the people are of mixed African and European descent. The small (less than 5%) black population is concentrated along the coasts and in the Magdalena and Cauca valleys. Spanish is the official language. The population is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. There are universities in all the major cities. Economy Agriculture has traditionally been the chief economic activity in Colombia. An extremely wide variety of crops is grown, depending on altitude, but coffee is by far the major crop and its price on the world market has affected Colombia's economic health. Among the commercial crops, coffee is grown between elevations of 3,000 and 6,000 ft (914 and 1,829 m); bananas, cotton, sugarcane, oil palm, and tobacco are grown at lower elevations. Between 6,000 and 10,000 ft (1,829 and 3,048 m) potatoes, beans, grains, and temperate zone fruit and vegetables are grown. Colombia is rich in minerals, including petroleum, natural gas, iron, nickel, coal, copper, gold, silver, platinum, and emeralds. The saltworks at Zipaquirá, near Bogotá, are world famous. Hydroelectric potential was developed during the 1970s and 80s. The manufacturing sector of the economy has expanded greatly in recent decades, although it is heavily dependent on imported materials. Beverages and processed foods, textiles, clothing and footwear, metal products, cement, and chemicals are the chief manufactures. Tourism is also a sizable source of income. Oil replaced coffee as the nation's leading legal export in 1991. Other important official exports include petroleum-related products, coal, cotton, bananas, cut flowers, and sugar. Cocaine is the major illicit export, accounting for about 25% of foreign exchange earnings. Once most of the raw materials were grown in Peru and Bolivia, but cultivation has increased in Colombia as a result of those nations coca-eradication programs. The drug trade (Colombia also produces heroin and grows cannabis) has brought riches to some, but has seriously disrupted the fabric of Colombian society with its violence. Industrial and transportation equipment, foodstuffs, chemicals, and paper products lead Colombia's imports. The United States and Germany are the chief trade partners. Colombia joined the Andean Group, an economic organization of South American nations, in 1969, and has signed free-trade pacts with other Andean countries and Mexico. During the early 1990s the economy was growing quickly in comparison with that of other Latin American countries, and inflation and unemployment were under control. However, government spending and foreign debt soared in the late 1990s, the country suffered its worst recession in a century, and labor unrest and internal problems related to the drug trade continued to threaten the country's economic stability. Government Colombia is governed under a 1991 constitution. The president serves a four-year term. The legislature, subservient to the president, consists of a senate and a house of representatives. The members are apportioned among the departments (states) and popularly elected for four-year terms. The supreme court is chosen by the president and the legislature. The Conservative and Liberal parties, formed in the 1800s, dominate political life. To insure stability, the two formed the National Front Coalition in 1957 and agreed to divide the major offices between them and alternate in the presidency. The coalition, which ended in late 1973, was challenged in the 1960s by the Popular National Alliance, formed by the former dictator Rojas Pinilla. History History to 1858 Prior to the Spanish conquest, Colombia was inhabited by Chibcha, sub-Andean, and Caribbean peoples, all of whom lived in organized, agriculturally based communities. After the Spanish conquest, which began in 1525, the area of present-day Colombia formed the nucleus of New Granada (for colonial history, see New Granada). The struggle for independence was, as in all Spanish-American possessions, precipitated by the Napoleonic invasion of Spain. The revolution was, however, foreshadowed by the rising of the comuneros. Prominent among the first revolutionary leaders was Antonio Nariño, who took part in the uprising at Bogotá on July 20, 1810. The revolution was to last nine years before the victory of Simón Bolívar at Boyacá (1819) secured the independence of Greater Colombia (Span., Gran Colombia). The new state Bolívar created included what is now Venezuela, Panama, and (after 1822) Ecuador, as well as Colombia. Cúcuta was chosen as capital. While Bolívar, who had been named president, headed campaigns in Ecuador and Peru, the vice president, Francisco de Paula Santander, administered the new nation. Political factions soon crystallized. Santander advocated a union of federal sovereign states, while Bolívar championed a centralized republic. Although Bolívar's authority prevailed by and large in the constitutional assembly (1828), Greater Colombia soon fell apart. In 1830, Venezuela and Ecuador became separate nations. The remaining territory emerged as the republic of New Granada. Through the 19th cent. and into the 20th cent. political unrest and civil strife reappeared constantly. Strong parties developed along conservative and liberal lines; the conservatives favored centralism and participation by the church in government and education, and the liberals supported federalism, anticlericalism, and some measure of social legislation and fiscal reforms. Civil war frequently erupted between the factions. During the 19th and early 20th cent. three statesmen stand out—Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, Rafael Núñez, and Rafael Reyes. While Mosquera was president, a treaty was concluded (1846) granting the United States transit rights across the Isthmus of Panama. The New Nation A new constitution in 1858 created a confederation of nine states called Granadina. Three years later (1861) under Mosquera, the country's name was changed to the United States of New Granada and in 1863 to the United States of Colombia. The antifederalist revolution of 1885 led one year later, during the presidency of Núñez, to the formation of the republic of Colombia and enactment of a conservative constitution. In 1899, five years after Núñez's death, civil war of unprecedented violence broke out and raged for three years. As many as 100,000 people were killed before the Conservatives emerged victorious. Another humiliation occurred when, after the United States had acquired the right to complete the Panama Canal (although the agreement was later rejected by the Colombian congress), the republic of Panama declared and, aided by the United States, achieved its independence from Colombia (1903). During the semidictatorial administration (1904–9) of Reyes, internal order was restored and the country's trade and productivity were vigorously expanded. Reyes, nevertheless, had to resign because of discontent over his handling of the Panama issue. Soon afterward Colombia recognized (1914) Panama's independence in exchange for rights in the Canal Zone and the payment of an indemnity from the United States. For the next four decades political life remained fairly peaceful, although there was economic and social unrest in the 1920s and 1930s. Colombia settled (1917) its boundary disputes with Ecuador, and in 1934 a border clash with Peru over the town of Leticia was settled by the League of Nations in Colombia's favor. Under the leadership of the liberals Olaya Herrera (1930–34), Alfonso López (1934–38), and Eduardo Santos (1938–42), wide-ranging reforms were enacted. Colombia participated in World War II on the Allied side. During the war years, internal divisions worsened. The Liberals split and in the 1946 elections presented two candidates, enabling the Conservatives to win. Mid-Century to the Present In 1948, while an Inter-American Conference was being held in Bogotá, the leftist Liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, under whom the party had reunited, was assassinated, precipitating violent riots and acts of vandalism. The death of Gaitán exacerbated the enmity between social groups and plunged the country into a decade of civil strife, martial law, and violent rule that cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Political violence turned into sheer criminality (la violencia), particularly in rural areas. An archconservative dictator, Laureano Gómez, took power in 1950, when the Liberals put forward no candidate. In 1953, Gómez was ousted by a coup led by Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, the head of the armed forces. Repressive measures continued, fiscal reforms failed, the country was plunged into debt, and Rojas Pinilla became implicated in scandalously corrupt schemes. A military junta, backed by Liberals and Conservatives alike, ousted Rojas Pinilla in 1957. The following year Alberto Lleras Camargo became president, elected under the National Front coalition agreement. The National Front presidential candidate of 1970, Misael Pastrana Borrero, won very narrowly over Rojas Pinilla, who returned to politics as the champion of the underprivileged. Colombia's economy began to recover from the setbacks of the early 1970s as economic diversification and incentives to lure foreign capital into the country were initiated. However, a high inflation rate continued to impede economic growth. In 1974 the Liberal party candidate Alfonso López Michelsen won the first presidential election following the end of the National Front. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Colombia's illegal drug trade grew steadily, as the drug cartels amassed huge amounts of money, weapons, and influence. The 1970s also saw the growth of such leftist guerrilla groups as the May 19th Movement (M-19), the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN). The violence continued, and many journalists and government officials were killed. In 1986, Virgilio Barco Vargas, of the Liberal party, was elected president; he was succeeded in 1990 by César Gaviria Trujillo, also a Liberal. In 1990 a Constitutional Assembly, which included members of the M-19 group, was elected to draft a new constitution; the document, which came into force on July 5, 1991, included protection for human rights and established citizens' rights to social security and health care. Liberal Ernesto Samper Pizano was elected president in 1994 and, though he appeared to make efforts to combat drug trafficking, he was accused of having accepted money from the Cali cocaine "cartel" for his election campaign. He was cleared of all charges (1996) by the Congress, but his administration was marked by charges of corruption and mismanagement. The notorious Medellín drug cartel was broken in 1993, and the Cali cartel was later undermined by arrests of key leaders. Drug traffickers continue to have significant wealth and power, however, and FARC and the ELN remain active, perpetuating a condition of instability. Conservative Andrés Pastrana Arango, a former mayor of Bogotá and son of Misael Pastrana, was elected president in 1998. He pledged to work with both leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary leaders in an attempt to end more than 30 years of conflict in the country. In Nov., 1998, Pastrana ceded an area the size of Switzerland in S central Colombia to FARC's control as a goodwill gesture, but the rebels negotiated with the government only fitfully, continued to mount attacks, expanded coca production, and essentially established a parallel government in the region under their control. The government's energies also were diverted by a severe recession in 1999 and a major earthquake that hit W Colombia early in 1999, leaving over a thousand people dead. Ongoing negotiations with the rebels in 2000 and 2001 were marred by rebel attacks and kidnappings and fighting between rebels and paramilitaries for control of coca-growing areas in Colombia. As a result, popular disenchantment with Pastrana increased, even as he moved forward with his "Plan Colombia," a $7 billion social aid and antidrug program that included $1.3 billion in largely military aid from the United States. In Feb., 2002, after FARC hijacked a airplane and kidnapped a senator, Pastrana ordered the military to attack rebel positions and reassert control over the rebel zone. FARC withdrew into the jungle and began attacks against the power grid, telecommunications facilities, and other aspects of Colombia's infrastructure, in an attempt to disrupt the lives of the largely urban population while avoiding a direct conflict with the military. In May, a hard-line rightist candidate, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who promised to crack down on the leftist rebels, won the presidential election. Uribe, a former governor and senator who ran as an independent, declared a limited state of emergency, broadening the government's police powers, as part of his campaign against the rebels. By the end of 2003, the government's increased use of its forces had decreased violence somewhat, but the rebels remained strong, if withdrawn into the countryside. Also, the economy improved, cocaine production—a source of rebel income—was reduced with American help, and some paramilitary forces agreed to begin disarming. Despite his resulting popularity, however, in November Uribe lost a referendum that would have increased his control over the government's budget and made other structural governmental changes; the national debt had risen to 50% of the GDP. Bibliography See O. Fals-Borda, Subversion and Social Change in Colombia (rev. ed., tr. 1969); A. E. Havens and W. L. Flinn, Internal Colonialism and Structural Change in Colombia (1970); T. E. Weil et al., Area Handbook for Colombia (1970); J. M. Henao and G. Arruba, History of Colombia (tr. 2 vol., 1938; repr. 1976); J. B. Sokol et al., Colombia: Economic Development and Policy under Changing Conditions (1984); R. H. Dix, The Politics of Colombia (1986); J. Hartlyn, The Politics of Coalition Rule in Colombia (1988); B. Bagley et al., The State and Society in Colombia (1988). ____________________The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. 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