COUNTRY BACKGROUND / OVERVIEW

Colombia, in the north-west of South America, is a country rich in many ways. It has an amalgam of ethnic and regional specificities that involve different social practices, world views and cultures that are recognized and protected by the 1991 Constitution, one of the most progressive in the world. “Colombia is a social state governed by the rule of law, organised in the form of a unitary national republic, decentralised, with autonomy for its territorial entities, democratic, participatory and pluralist, based on respect for human dignity, on the work and solidarity of its people and on the prevalence of the general interest”, states in its Article

The Constitution, which guarantees human rights, recognises, among other things, the right to life, freedom, equality before the law, the free development of the personality, privacy and peace: “Peace is a right and a duty which must be fulfilled”, states the Constitution in Article 22.

Spanish is the official language of Colombia, but the Constitution recognises that indigenous languages are also official in their territories

Colombia is a country located in the tropics, which has coasts on both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Its territory is of 1’141.748 square kilometres to which are added the marine and submarine platform.

In Colombia there are 32 departments (headed by governors); 1123 municipalities (headed by mayors); five territorial entities with a special administration (Bogotá and the port cities of Cartagena, Barranquilla, Santa Marta and Buenaventura); the indigenous territorial entities; and the collective territories allocated to Afro-Colombian communities in areas of the Pacific.

Facts and figures

86/189 ranking of Human Development Index