POPULATION 41,008,227
ROMAN CATHOLIC 81 percent
OTHER CHRISTIAN 10 percent
EVANGELICAL 3.5 percent
OTHER 3.6 percent
NONRELIGIOUS 1.9 percent

Country Overview

Introduction

The Republic of Colombia, located in northern South America, is bordered by the Caribbean Sea on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also borders Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador. The twin chains of the northern Andes Mountains run through the country, which has thus been historically constrained by its rugged geography. Colombia also spreads over the lowland Amazon basin.

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century C.E., highland Colombia was the site of several indigenous chiefdoms. In the area around Bogotá the Chibcha developed, while the south was a contact zone with the expanding Inca empire. The lowland area held a variety of horticultural societies centered along the rivers. Colonial economic enterprises, in which the native population was used for labor, led...