Colombia: Geography and Environment

Colombia sits in the northwestern corner of South America and is the only country on the continent with coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Andes mountains split into three parallel ranges, the Cordillera Occidental, Central, and Oriental, running north to south through the western half of the country.

East of the Andes, the landscape opens into the Orinoco Llanos, a vast region of tropical grasslands, and further south into the Amazon rainforest, which covers roughly a third of Colombia's territory. Because the country lies near the equator, climate varies more by elevation than by season, ranging from hot lowlands to cool highland plateaus.

Colombia is recognized as one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, and environmental priorities center on protecting the Amazon rainforest from deforestation, managing the impacts of illegal mining and land use change, and conserving its wide range of ecosystems across coastal, mountain, and rainforest regions.