Everything you need to know about Colombia
Explore Colombia from Caribbean islands and Andean coffee valleys to the Pacific coast, eastern plains and Amazon. Learn its departments and cities, discover the food, music and communities behind the places, then practise Spanish. The country also has many Indigenous languages and distinct creole traditions.
Read it, then make it stick
Geography of Colombia
Three Andean ranges divide the country into mountain valleys, while rivers connect the eastern plains and Amazon forest with distant seas.
Know the shape of the country
Start with all 32 departments and Bogotá’s separate Capital District, then place 24 cities and find eight rivers, the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Zoom in around Bogotá, the coffee departments and the Caribbean islands. Natural Earth supplies the generalised map geometry, in the public domain. The river layer retains short stretches of shared border rivers; marine areas show learning targets rather than maritime claims.
Places worth visiting
Essential · Walled city
Cartagena old town
Colorful balconies fill a walled colonial city on the sea. Walk the walls at sunset.
Pair the Caribbean coast with the coffee hills and the Andean cities, then head out to the jungle trek and the river of colors. Essential is our shortlist for a first trip, and worth a detour goes further. Select a pin to read about a place, then play the map and find them all.
Take Spanish with you
Greetings and politeness
Hello, please, thank you, sorry: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Colombia, the countries marked guide have a page like this one, and every other has maps of its own.
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