Colombia: Physical Geography

Colombia sits in the northwestern corner of South America, bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the west, giving it coastlines on two different oceans. Its territory of roughly 1.14 million square kilometers encompasses an unusually wide range of landscapes, from snow-capped mountains and an arid peninsula to dense rainforest and open savanna.

The Andes Mountains enter Colombia from the south and split into three parallel ranges, the Cordillera Occidental, Cordillera Central, and Cordillera Oriental, which run northeast toward the Caribbean coast. The Cordillera Central contains the country's most active volcanoes, while the Cordillera Oriental holds the high basin occupied by the capital, Bogota. Between the western two ranges, the Cauca and Magdalena rivers flow through fertile valleys that have long concentrated much of Colombia's population and agriculture, with the Magdalena eventually reaching the Caribbean near Barranquilla. Colombia's highest point, Pico Cristobal Colon, rises apart from the main Andean chain in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta near the Caribbean coast.

East of the Andes, the terrain drops into vast lowlands: the grassy Llanos plains drain toward the Orinoco River in the northeast, while dense Amazon rainforest covers much of the south. Along the Pacific coast, heavy rainfall supports some of the wettest rainforest in the world, while the Caribbean lowlands to the north include the comparatively dry Guajira Peninsula. Because temperature in Colombia depends more on elevation than on season, the country is commonly described through altitude-based climate zones, ranging from the hot tierra caliente near sea level to the frigid, often snow-covered paramo and permanent snowfields of the highest peaks.