Columbian National Holiday

Independence Day

This day in history: On July 20, 1810, Colombian patriots stirred the population of Bogotá into street protests against Spanish rule. The Viceroy, under pressure, was forced to agree to allow for a limited independence which later became permanent. Today, July 20 is celebrated in Colombia as Independence Day.

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish: República de Colombia), is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. It is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the northwest by Panama; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. With an estimated 46 million people in 2008, Colombia is the third-most populous country in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico. It is also home to the second-largest number of Spanish speakers in the world after Mexico.

Colombia was the first constitutional government in South America, and an important promoter of the Pan American organizations, initially through the Congress of Panama and later as founder of the Organization of American States. Colombia was engulfed in the Year-Long War with Peru over a territorial dispute and entered the Korean War as an ally of South Korea. Since the 1960s, the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict. The conflict escalated in the 1990s, but since 2000 the conflict has decreased considerably.