Colombia Domain Name Registration - .COM.CO Domain Name Registration in Colombia

Colombia officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country located in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Atlantic Ocean, through the Caribbean Sea; to the north-west by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. Colombia also shares maritime borders with the Caribbean countries of Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Central American countries of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

Colombia is the 26th largest nation in the world and the fourth-largest in South America (after Brazil, Argentina, and Peru), with an area more than twice that of France. It also has the third-largest population in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico.

The territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous tribes which had migrated from North and Central America, including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona civilizations. To the south lay the Inca Empire. The Spanish first arrived in 1499, initiating a period of conquest and colonisation which ultimately led to the creation of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (comprising what is now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama) with its capital at Bogotá.

Independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 "Gran Colombia" had collapsed with the secession of Venezuela and Ecuador. Modern day Colombia, with Panama, emerged as the Republic of New Granada. The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858), and then the United States of Colombia (1863), before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Panama seceded in 1903.

Colombia has a long tradition of constitutional government, and the Conservative and Liberal parties, founded in 1843 and 1848 respectively, are two of the oldest surviving political parties in the Americas. However, tensions between the two have frequently erupted into violence, most notably in the Thousand Days War (1899-1902) and La Violencia, beginning in 1948. Since the 1960s, conflict between government forces and anti-government insurgents and illegal paramilitary groups - both heavily funded by the cocaine trade - has been escalating, increasing dramatically in the 1990s.

The insurgents lack the military or popular support necessary to overthrow the government, and violence has been decreasing since about 2002, but insurgents continue attacks against civilians and large swaths of the countryside are under guerrilla influence. More than 32,000 former paramilitaries had demobilized by the end of 2006 and the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) as a formal organization had ceased to function. Still, some renegades continued to engage in criminal activities. The Colombian Government has stepped up efforts to reassert government control throughout the country, and now has a presence in every one of its municipalities.

Colombia is a standing middle power with the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico. It is also one of the largest manufacturers in South America. Colombia is very ethnically diverse, with a population comprising descendents of the original native inhabitants, Spanish colonisers, African slaves and twentieth-century immigrants from Europe and the Middle East. The interaction between these groups has produced an incredibly rich culture. Colombia is considered to be among 17 of the most megadiverse countries in the world.