Colombia

PRESENTED BY:
M.F
2
Colombia

 Official name: Republic of Colombia

(República de Colombia)
 Land area: 401,042 sq mi (1,038,699 sq km)
 Total area: 439,736 sq mi (1,138,910 sq km)
 President: Ivan Duque (Since 2018)
 Capital: Bogotá, 10.574 million (2018)
 Currency: Colombian Peso
 National Holiday: Independence Day (7/20)
 Language: Spanish about 99.2%
 Geography

 Colombia is bordered on the northwest by Panama,

on the east by Venezuela and Brazil, and on the
southwest by Peru and Ecuador.
 Onthe west, there are three Andean ranges run north
and south.
 Theeastern half is a low, jungle-covered plain, drained
by spurs of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, inhabited
mostly by isolated tropical-forest Indian tribes
 HISTORY
Colombian flag consists of three
horizontal stripes:
Yellow – wider one, symbolizes
Colombian gold, blue the Pacific
Ocean bathing the Colombian shores;
sovereignty
Red - refers to the blood shed during
the struggle for freedom; bravery
Blue – nobility; The flag should express
The flag thoroughly symbolizes the unity of
the Colombian population which
has experienced many difficulties
over time
Colonial Era

 The Spanish begun their colonization of the Caribbean year

1500s.
 In 1508, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa reached Colombia
alongside Martín Fernández de Enciso.
 Two years later they would found Darien, the first permanent
European settlement on the American mainland.
 In 1538 they established the colony of New Granada, the
area's name until 1861.
 Bolivar and Independence

 After 14-year struggle of Simón Bolívar's Venezuelan troops won the battle of Boyacá in
Colombia on Aug. 7, 1819, independence was attained in 1824.
 Bolívar united Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and Ecuador in the Republic of Greater
Colombia (1819–1830), but he lost Venezuela and Ecuador to separatists.
 2 political parties dominated the region:
 The Conservatives, believed in a strong central government and a powerful church.
 The Liberals, believed in a decentralized government, strong regional power, and a
less influential role for the church.
 In 1899, a brutal civil war broke out, the War of a Thousand Days, that lasted until 1902. The
following year, Colombia lost its claims to Panama because it refused to ratify the lease to
the United States of the Canal Zone. Panama declared its independence in 1903.
 The Colombian Conflict
 Marxist guerrilla groups organized in the 1960s and 1970s, most notably the
May 19th Movement, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), plunged the country into violence and
instability.
 In the 1970s and 1980s, Colombia became one of the international centers for
illegal drug production and trafficking, and at times the drug cartels virtually
controlled the country. Colombia provides 75% of the world's illegal cocaine.
 Belisario Betancur Cuartas, a Conservative who assumed the presidency in 1982,
unsuccessfully attempted to stem the guerrilla violence. In an official war
against drug trafficking, Colombia became a public battleground with bombs,
killings, and kidnappings. By 1989, homicide had become the leading cause of
death in the nation.
 CULTURE

 In recent years Colombia (much like South Korea since the 1990s)
has undergone major dedicated efforts to export their pop culture
around the globe.
 Inearly 2000s the government pass legislation encouraging the
development of the country's film industry.
 Colombia hosts the Cartagena Film Festival, the oldest film festival in
Latin America.
 Popular music is probably the country's best known export (with
musicians like Shakira, Carlos Vives, and Juanes). Traditional music
and classical music are also widely regarded.
 As the home of the continent's oldest Spanish language
academy, it should come as no surprise that Colombia is a major
literary country. Colombian authors produced works of prose
and poetry through the colonial era onward.

 Colombia's most famous author is Gabriel García Márquez,

whose body of work through the 1970s earned him a Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1982. His novel 100 Years of Solitude is
widely read around the world.