Overview
Colombia lies in the northwest corner of South America and covers an area of 439,735 square miles (1,138,914 square kilometers). It is bounded to the north by the Caribbean Sea, to the northeast by Venezuela, to the southeast by Brazil, to the south by Peru, to the west by Ecuador and the Pacific Ocean, and to the northwest by Panama. It embraces the northernmost point in South America, P
oint Gallinas, and is the only country on the continent with both Caribbean and Pacific coasts. The Andes run the length of the country in three ranges called the Cordillera Occidental, the Cordillera Central, and the Cordillera Oriental, which comprise the highland core where most of the population lives. Some of the richest farmland lies between the western and central ranges along the Cauca River. The Magdalena River valley, between the central and eastern ranges, is densely populated and the site of the capital, Bogotá. The eastern plains, or llanos, account for 60 percent of the country's territory and are sparsely populated, as are the coastal lowlands. To the southeast lie the undeveloped tropical rain-forests of the Amazon basin. The economy depends largely on such agricultural products as coffee (the leading export), bananas, cotton, rice, corn, sugarcane, and tobacco. Colombia produces more than 90 percent of the world's emeralds and also exports gold, iron, nickel, copper, lead, salt, coal, natural gas, and petroleum. Manufacturing, a growing sector of the economy, employed about 20 percent of the population in the early 1990s. The country's highly diverse population of 38.5 million includes at least 15 distinct cultural and regional groups. The major ethnic groups include: descendants of Indians, who are concentrated in the Andes; persons of solely European descent, who have traditionally held most of the country's wealth and power and account for less than 20 percent of the population; costeños, persons of mixed African, Indian, and Spanish descent living primarily on the coasts; and mestizos, or persons of Indian and Spanish descent, who account for about 58 percent of the population. Most Colombian Americans are Roman Catholic; a few are Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu.
