Colombia

American  

[kuh-luhm-bee-uh, kaw-lawm-byah] / kəˈlʌm bi ə, kɔˈlɔm bjɑ /

noun

1. a republic in northwestern South America. 439,828 sq. mi. (1,139,155 sq. km). Bogotá.

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Colombia British  

/ kəˈlɒmbɪə /

noun

1. a republic in NW South America: inhabited by Chibchas and other Indians before Spanish colonization in the 16th century; independence won by Bolívar in 1819; became the Republic of Colombia in 1886; violence and unrest have been endemic since the 1970s. It consists chiefly of a hot swampy coastal plain, separated by ranges of the Andes from the pampas and the equatorial forests of the Amazon basin in the east. Language: Spanish. Religion: Roman Catholic majority. Currency: peso. Capital: Bogotá. Pop: 45 745 783 (2013 est). Area: 1 138 908 sq km (439 735 sq miles)

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Colombia Cultural  

1. Republic in northwestern South America, bordered by Panama to the northwest, Venezuela to the northeast, Ecuador and Peru to the south, and Brazil to the southeast. Its capital and largest city is Bogotá.

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Discover More

Trafficking of marijuana and cocaine remains a problem in Colombia. With support from the United States, the Colombian government has attacked drug traffickers, but the country continues to be torn by civil war between left-wing and right-wing factions.

Its major legal crop is coffee.

Other Word Forms

• Colombian
  adjective

Example Sentences

Latin America accounted for 67 percent of the submissions, with Colombia alone representing 25.9 percent of the total.

From Barron's • Jul. 2, 2026

Cuba will face enormous difficulties in implementing the measures, said Pavel Vidal, a Cuban economist at the Universidad Javeriana in Cali, Colombia.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 1, 2026

The buzz: Unbeaten Colombia won its group but scored just once in its final two games.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 1, 2026

Some 3,150 people were injured in Wednesday evening's 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes, which were also felt in neighboring Colombia.

From Barron's • Jun. 29, 2026

Less than two years after the Unzen catastrophe another group of volcano watchers, led by Stanley Williams of the University of Arizona, descended into the rim of an active volcano called Galeras in Colombia.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson