Geography Now Colombia

This episode is brought to you by 24HourAnswers.com Hey guys! Say hi to my friend, Diego! Hey guys! He's a real Colombian! Okay, that's good enough. You can go now. Yeah, yeah. Sweet. Thanks. It's time to learn geography now! Hey guys! Want to know the best way to anger a Colombian? C-O-L-U- Colombia! Dude, sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, bro. The Colombian flag is pretty simple. It's just three colors. Yellow, blue and red. The yellow takes up half of the entire flag and the blue and red take up a quarter each at the bottom. The yellow stands for the gold found in the country. The blue stands for the shores and the rivers as well as the sky. And the red stands for... Now, keep in mind, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador all kind of follow the same general color scheme and this is partially because they all have a unique relationship that we will discuss later. But first... One thing you have to know about Colombia is that it has always kind of historically dominated the northern regions of South America and has played a huge powerful role on the Latin American stage. Colombia is located on the top of the South American continent bordered by five other countries connected to and bisected by Panama in the northwest, making Colombia the only country in South America to have coasts on both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The country has 32 departments and one capital district for the capital city Bogota Diego, did I pronounce that right? Bogota which is also treated as a department. The weird thing is that the capital Bogota is also the capital of the Cundinamarca department but technically not actually part of it so the citizens of Bogota can vote for the mayor of the city but not the governor of Cundinamarca even though the governor's office is also in Bogota. Oh, Colombia! Colombia also has a weird administrative subdivision in which four other cities are also kind of considered districts they are Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa Marta and Buenaventura. Ok Diego, did I pronounce those correctly? No. One thing you have to understand is that the vast majority of people in the country live in the upper highlands and coasts of the country and you thought China was disproportionate Colombia is pretty intense too. Only 3% of the population lives in the dense forests of the south and eastern jungles even though it makes up 54% of the country's landmass. Many areas to this day are inaccessible and unexplored or simply just kind of closed off to tourists because of the small guerrilla groups that still kind of occupy certain areas. The country spans all the way from Punta Gallinas from the Caribbean which is kind of close to the Gulf of Venezuela and all the way to the south of the town of Leticia on the border of Peru in the Amazonas department which by the way has this cool looking flag. Now let's go offshore. Altogether, Colombia has over 40 island, quays and archipelagos along the Caribbean and Pacific coasts some of the most notable ones being the Rosario Archipelago with pristine coral reefs Gorgona Island that used to be a high security prison Yeah, a lot of countries put high security prisons on islands You can kind of start to see a pattern going on And there's also the San Andres, Providencia and Catalina Archipelago which is the only place in Colombia where English is the official language It had something to do with the English Puritans moving there because they thought Massachusetts was too cold and something with the pirates and wars, separatists, yadda yadda yadda and now it's a hot tourist spot. Then of course you can't forget the San Bernardo Archipelago with Santa Cruz del Eslote regarded as the most densely populated island in the world People literally have to go through each other's living rooms just to get to other places on the island. Now here's the thing, there's a few insane people in this world that actually have the time, energy and money to go across this thing called the Pan American Highway in which they attempt to go all the way from Alaska to Argentina or the other way around Right around the halfway point you hit the biggest road block the Darien Gap Right on the border between Colombia and Panama there's a thick dense jungle and swamp land with virtually no roads connecting the two countries at about 160 kilometers or 100 miles long This is the missing link in the Pan America Highway and in order to get to Colombia from Panama you will pretty much either have to fly or take a ferry The reason why there's no road is partially to do with the people going, oh no, let's like protect the rainforest and stuff and like it could really mess up things with drug trafficking and also there's just tribal people living there, but the biggest reason why is because it pretty much just costs too much Okay, now let's have some real fun and see what's inside of Colombia Okay, right off the bat Colombia is recognized as a mega diverse country In terms of biodiversity, it's only second in the world after Brazil and about 10% of the entire world biodiversity can be found here. The reason why is partially because Colombia, like the Cameroon episode that we studied a few episodes ago Check it out! Comprises an array of dramatically contrasting landscapes all over the entire country Generally speaking, the country is divided into five different eco-regions. The Caribbean, the Andes, the Pacific, the Orinoco and the Amazon The Andes region is home to the highlands that the majority of the population and urban centers can be found in with snow-capped peaks and volcanoes. Remember this place is kind of still technically in the ring of fire. You can find the tallest palm trees in the world here as well as the majority of coffee growing fields, which by the way Colombia is the third largest producer of coffee in the world right after Brazil and surprisingly, Vietnam? Wow, Vietnam you beat Colombia? Dang! Well it doesn't really matter because it's all gonna go to Finland anyway. This is also the area with the largest mineral and gem mines with over 140 documented sites. Colombia is the world's largest producer of emeralds providing about 75 to 90% of the entire world's market The Caribbean region acts as kind of like a drainage basin for Colombia's principal river the Magdalena that empties into the Caribbean from the Andes at the point of Barranquilla This low-laying humid tropic zone with amazing beaches was actually the first place settled by Europeans in Colombia and is known for having one of the only two desert zones in all of Colombia, the Guajira Desert. You can also find the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains which has the world's largest coastal mountain and Colombia's highest peak Mount Cristobal Colón, although Mount Simon Bolivar is almost completely identical in height. The Pacific region is noted for being the rainiest area in all of Colombia with an average of 400 centimeters of precipitation year-round. This rain supports many rivers that flow through the country and irrigate the dense jungles that reach the coasts. The Orinoco region, named after the Orinoco River Basin, is kind of like the farm and ranch lands of Colombia. Sparsely populated, this area is on the other side of the Andes and is generally flatter and suitable for crop and livestock production. This area is also rich in oil and home to the famous, newly discovered Caño Cristales River, also known as the River of Five Colors, some say seven or the Liquid Rainbow River known as the world's most beautiful river thanks to the various rock sediments and plant life that adorn the crystal clear waters that flow through. This place just opened up to the public and it's actually really hard to get here. There's only like one cargo plane that drops you off in the general vicinity and then you have to drive a ways to get there. Challenge accepted! Finally we reach the Amazon region. This area is, without a doubt, the most biologically compact region in all of Colombia and a world apart from the rest of the country. Here, lizards are blue, dolphins are pink, and people sometimes keep capybaras as pets. No matter where you are in Colombia, all the people kind of share the same complex history and story. Such we will cover in... Ah, Colombia! The only place where they can tarnish their image with drug cartels yet entice you with Shakira. By the way, save yourself the trouble and do not bring up the cocaine conversation with Colombians. They've heard it all and they're sick of it. First off, the country has about 50 million people and is the third most populous country in Latin America after Mexico and Brazil. It is also the third most populous country with Spanish speakers after Mexico and the US. In terms of ethnic makeup it's really hard to kind of get an exact individual racial percentage because, like Brazil, a large portion of Colombia's population has a mixture of European and either Amerindian or African ancestry or both. It varies on region, but generally mestizos and whites make up about 80% of the population, with the specific white population mostly descended from Spain being somewhere around 30%, but the line is a little hazy. Afro-Colombians, including the mixed race black Colombians like the Raizal and Palaquero make about 12%, indigenous tribal peoples make about 4%, and the rest of the population is a mixture of every other people group like Asians, Arabs, and even a surprising community of Romanis. Now here's the thing, Colombians have a strong sense of regionalism. People on the Caribbean coast generally have a more vibrant party type of culture with numerous festivals throughout the entire year. The second largest Carnival festival can be found in Barranquilla. The Pacific coast is where most of the black community can be found where one quarter of the entire population there has Afro-Colombian roots. The Andes is where all the business and government is processed with the largest cities. Also here you can find the famous paisa accent that outsiders in the Latin American world typically affiliate Colombia with. Joanna from Flama does a great job explaining this. Colombia has a bunch of different accents but the most intense one is It's as if Sean Connery spoke Spanish and was telling you a very sad story all of the time. She's so great. Hey Diego, come here. Can you do the paisa accent? Let me try. Then of course you have the farmers of the Orinoco region and the least populated Amazon region that has the highest concentration of indigenous tribal peoples. Most of which speak their own languages and many of which to this day are still undocumented. Overall, there are all different types of Colombians. You have blonde hair, blue eyed Colombians, you have black African Colombians, Lebanese Colombians and everything in between. Now here's where things are going to get a little messy. If you're going to understand one thing about Colombia it's that pretty much everybody in the country is either somehow affiliated with or affected by one of the conflicting political groups that stem back over half a century ago. Even though Colombia is doing exponentially better than what it was decades ago with a booming economy and relative government stability, kind of. Everybody knows that yes, Colombia has had some pretty crazy times and things got really messy especially in the 80s and 90s when the whole country went pretty much through Armageddon. I'm going to try to condense this in the quickest way I possibly can but essentially it all started with the liberal and conservative parties fighting against each other until all hell broke loose and then this guy was assassinated in the 40s inciting a 10 year civil war which ended with each side agreeing to give consecutive ruling power between each side alternating each 4 years. But then the people were like, no we don't like that so they created their own left wing guerrilla warfare groups like FARC, M19, ELN, inspired by Che Guevara and the Marxist ideologies whom fought against the government and a few incidents against themselves sometimes. Whereas parts of the Colombian army broke off and created their own illegal paramilitary groups that fought against both the regular military and the guerrillas. As all this was happening drug cartels were growing and expanding their billion dollar empires in the 80s and 90s the largest ones being the Cali cartel led by the Rodriguez Orejuela family and the Medellin cartel led by Pablo Escobar the richest drug cartel of all time. Side plug watch the show Narcos. I've heard it's actually surprisingly kind of accurate. The cartels were so powerful they actually kind of technically ruled parts of the country and they fought against each other and the paramilitary and the government and the guerrilla warfare groups and all while this was happening the biggest casualty of the entire conflict was the everyday Colombian citizen that didn't want anything to do with anything. So it all didn't really cool down until about the early 2000s after a huge effort from the US that aided the fight against the cartels which are pretty much all but non-existent today. Peace talks are still underway right now and the country is seeing the brightest days it's seen in a long time. And of course you can't feel bright without... Colombians may have had some internal drama but they've never really been diplomatically isolated. Historically speaking Colombia has always been quite the extrovert even in times of full blown warfare. First of all, one thing you have to understand about Colombia is the ECOVE alliance a term I literally just made up for this episode referring to Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. These three countries in addition to Panama and bits of Peru and Brazil and Guyana were all parts of the same country once called Gran Colombia. Long story short regions divided and now you have three siblings Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. As you can tell these three countries have similar flags and culture identify with each other closer than any other Latin American country. Ecuador is kind of seen as like the little brother who got a job, stays out of trouble and manages his business portfolio while sipping on some morocho on his beach front home. Now Colombia and Venezuela are kind of like fraternal twins. Colombia is like the stressed out brother who just got back from fighting in a war and Venezuela is like the edgy yet attractive punk rock sister who doesn't like to be told what to do. They compete a lot and have minor squabbles here and there. I mean Venezuela just kind of recently closed off the border. But in the end they're all still family even if it is a little dysfunctional. As mentioned before Chile is a close friend. Colombians love either visiting or moving to Chile and business has never been better between the two. Panama is kind of seen as like the little sister that sort of had a crush on the U.S. and decided to leave the family for him. But that's okay because Colombia kind of sees the U.S. as a condomable suitor for her as he helped Colombia fight against the cartels and effectively re-revolutionized the entire economic infrastructure. Nonetheless Colombia would probably consider Mexico their best friend. Not only are they part of the Pacific Alliance but they both love to piggyback off of each other's cultures. Mexicans like to take cumbia and the Colombians like to take rancheras. In conclusion, Colombia is like that really attractive guy who just got out of a tornado and is just starting to wipe off the mud from his face and comb his hair. Resugiré como el ave Fenix. Oh and Steve Harvey you might want to avoid coming here for the next few forever. Stay tuned Camaros is coming up next. Hey Geograpeeps, I just want to give another quick shout out and thank you to 24houranswers.com They are our first sponsor. This video was sponsored by them. They are a great homework help and tutoring website. Most of the people on their website have at least master's degrees and the website is typically much cheaper than all the other tutoring websites. So check them out. 24houranswers.com. They are helping out Geography Now. Great people. Totally recommend it. And I got a promo code in the description box below. Check it out. You can get a discount. 24houranswers.com. Good stuff.