Colombia , officially the Republic of Colombia , is a country largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and Peru. It shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The sovereign state of Colombia is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. Colombia has been inhabited by various indigenous peoples since 12,000 BCE, including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and the Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and by the mid-16th century conquered and colonized much of the region, establishing the New Kingdom of Granada, with Santafé de Bogotá as its capital. Independence from Spain was achieved in 1819, but by 1830 the Gran Colombia Federation was dissolved, with what is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada. The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation , and then the United States of Colombia , before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Panama seceded in 1903. Since the 1960s, the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict, which escalated in the 1990s but then decreased from 2005 onward.Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, with its rich cultural heritage reflecting various European, Middle Eastern, African, and indigenous influences. Its urban centres are mostly located in the highlands of the Andes mountains and the Caribbean coast. Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines. Subsequently, it is one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries, and the most densely biodiverse of these per square kilometer.Colombia is a middle power and regional actor in Latin America, with the fourth-largest economy. It is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and is a member of the UN, the WTO, the OECD, the OAS, the Pacific Alliance, and other international organizations. Colombia has a diversified economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run.
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