Gran Colombia

Gran Colombia was Simón Bolívar's answer to the question of what should replace Spanish rule in northern South America: one large republic strong enough to secure independence and hold its own among the world's powers. For a dozen years it united what are now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama under a single government in Bogotá. It called itself simply the Republic of Colombia, and historians later added Gran to tell it apart from the smaller country that kept the name. Distance, regional rivalries, and quarrels among the generals who had won independence pulled it apart by 1831. The shared yellow, blue, and red of the Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Venezuelan flags still recall the union.

At its largest, Gran Colombia claimed about 3 million square kilometers, stretching from the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and the Isthmus of Panama south through the Andes to the Pacific port of Guayaquil, and east into the Orinoco and Amazon basins. The three Andean ranges of Colombia and the volcano-lined highlands of Ecuador held most of the people, in cities such as Bogotá, Quito, and Popayán. The Llanos, vast tropical grasslands of the Orinoco, linked Venezuela's interior to New Granada, while Caracas and Cartagena faced the Caribbean. Its territory now lies mainly in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama, and its outlying claims in the Amazon basin and on the Caribbean coast of Central America were later settled with neighbors including Brazil, Peru, and Nicaragua.

Bolívar's victory at Boyacá in August 1819 broke Spanish power in New Granada, and on December 17 of that year the Congress of Angostura proclaimed the union of Venezuela and New Granada. The Congress of Cúcuta adopted a centralized constitution in 1821, the same year Panama broke from Spain and joined, and Quito and Guayaquil were added after the battle of Pichincha in 1822. Bolívar served as president but spent years campaigning in Peru and Bolivia, while Vice President Francisco de Paula Santander governed from Bogotá. Venezuelan leaders resented rule from the distant capital, and in 1830 Venezuela under José Antonio Páez and Ecuador under Juan José Flores broke away. Bolívar died that December, and in 1831 the remainder became the Republic of New Granada, today's Colombia, which included Panama until 1903.

• Bogota
  Colombia's high-altitude Andean capital capital
• The Federal Republic of Central America
  The short-lived union of five Central American states after independence from Spain contemporary federation
• Panama
  The narrow isthmus where a canal joins two oceans former territory now
• Andes
  The world's longest continental mountain range, the 7,000-km spine of South America located in
• The Spanish Empire
  The first global empire, spanning the Americas, the Philippines and outposts in Africa preceded by
• The Spanish Empire
  The first global empire, spanning the Americas, the Philippines and outposts in Africa successor of
• Venezuela
  Oil, the Orinoco, and the world's highest waterfall successor state
• Colombia
  Where the Andes meet two oceans today part of
• Ecuador
  The equator, the Andes, and the Galápagos today part of
• Panama
  The narrow isthmus where a canal joins two oceans today part of
• Venezuela
  Oil, the Orinoco, and the world's highest waterfall today part of