Famous landmarks in Colombia

Colombia is a country in the northwest corner of South America, and the only South American country with coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Its capital is Bogotá, high in the Andes, and about 53 million people live there. Colombia is famous for coffee, emeralds, colourful cities, music such as cumbia, and an amazing variety of wildlife, especially birds.

On My Earth Toy you can visit the Walled City of Cartagena, the giant rock of El Peñón de Guatapé, the Las Lajas Sanctuary built across a canyon, the BD Bacatá skyscraper in Bogotá and the ancient Ciudad Perdida, or Lost City. Look for the white-nosed coati, a curious relative of the raccoon.

Geography and nature

Three ranges of the Andes run through western Colombia, with fertile valleys between them where coffee grows. The east is made of grassy plains called the Llanos and a large part of the Amazon rainforest. The Caribbean coast has beaches and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range that rises almost straight up from the sea. Caño Cristales is a river that turns red, yellow, green and blue when special water plants bloom.

People, languages and culture

Spanish is the official language, and dozens of Indigenous languages and two Creole languages are also recognised. Colombians have Indigenous, European and African roots. Music and dance are everywhere: cumbia and vallenato come from the Caribbean coast. The writer Gabriel García Márquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Arepas, round corn cakes, are eaten every day, and the Barranquilla Carnival is one of the biggest festivals in Latin America.

History in a nutshell

Indigenous peoples such as the Muisca and Tayrona built rich societies; the Tayrona's Ciudad Perdida is older than Machu Picchu. Spain conquered the region in the 1500s, and Cartagena became an important fortified port. Independence from Spain was won in 1819 under Simón Bolívar, first as part of Gran Colombia. Panama separated in 1903. In the late 20th century Colombia went through a long armed conflict, and a peace agreement was signed in 2016.