COLOMBIA COLOMBIA

The central-western area of the country, where is concentrated the population of Colombia, it's crossed from north to south by the cordillera of the Andes, which is divided by the courses of Magdalena (the main Colombian river 1,540 km long) and Cauca rivers, in three parallel chains the Cordillera Occidental, the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera Oriental. The Cordillera Central is developed for about 800 km, is the highest of the three chains, it has also significant volcanic peaks such as Nevado de Tolima (5215 metres), Nevado del Ruiz (5321 metres), Nevado de Santa Isabel (4950 meters) and Nevado del Huila (5439 metres). The Cordillera Oriental is the most extensive and complex of the three chains, in the middle are vast highlands, including the Altiplano Cundiboyacense placed an average of 2,600 meters of altitude, the northern part of the Cordillera presents the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy, where are the highest peaks of the cordillera, which reaches its maximum elevation with Ritacuba Blanco (5330 metres). The Cordillera Occidental that runs parallel to the Pacific Ocean is the lower of the three, reaching with its peaks the 4,000 meters of altitude, the maximum height is 4,100 metres of Farallones de Cali. The southeast and east of the country is home to the flat region of the Amazon rainforest, crossed by rivers Caquetá and Putumayo and other tributaries of the Amazon, and the region of llanos (savannahs) crossed by rivers Meta and Guaviare and others tributaries of Orinoco.

The economy of Colombia, remains essentially agricultural, at the base of the rural economy is coffee, of which the country is the second largest exporter in the world after Brazil, other major agricultural products are bananas, tobacco, cotton, cocoa, sugar cane, maize, rice, sorghum, wheat, potatoes, cassava. Colombia also produces cannabis and cocaine, whose proceeds are illegal even it exceed the legal exports of all other productive sectors. Even farming is an important resource, raise cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry and horses. Very rich are forest reserves that provide valuable timber, rubber, textile fibres, medicines and substances such as quinine. Noteworthy are the resources of the subsoil there are extracted emeralds, of which Colombia is one of the world's largest producers, oil, gold, platinum, natural gas, coal, lead, zinc, mercury, silver, nickel, copper, bauxite, iron, uranium, rock salt and sea salt. The industry has developed in the textiles, food, footwear, chemicals, engineering, cement, paper and tobacco sectors.