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Bogota
Colombia's high-altitude Andean capital
Set in a green Andean basin nearly 2,640 metres above the sea, Bogota is a cool, fast-moving capital where the air thins and the rain comes often. Colombia's largest city spreads across a high plateau called the Sabana, hemmed by mountains that rise abruptly along its eastern edge. Home to more than eleven million people in its metro region, it is the country's political, financial, and intellectual heart, a place of grand colonial churches, gold-laden museums, ambitious cycling infrastructure, and a thriving arts and university scene.
The city sits on a flat highland plain in the Cordillera Oriental of the Andes, backed by the steep peaks of Monserrate and Guadalupe that loom over the colonial district of La Candelaria. The altitude gives Bogota a temperate, spring-like climate year-round despite its near-equatorial latitude, with chilly nights, frequent drizzle, and no real summer or winter. From its mountainous edge the metropolis sprawls westward across the Sabana, its growth long shaped by the surrounding ring of peaks and wetlands.
Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada founded the city in 1538 atop the lands of the Muisca people, whose goldwork inspired the El Dorado legend and fills the city's renowned Gold Museum. As capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada and later of independent Colombia, Bogota grew into a centre of learning nicknamed the Athens of South America. Today it anchors the nation's economy and government, pioneering rapid bus transit and Sunday cycle-streets while wrestling with the congestion of relentless growth.