Cordillera Oriental (Colombia) in the context of Ritacuba Blanco

Cúcuta (Spanish: [ˈkukuta] ), officially San José de Cúcuta, is a Colombian municipality, capital of the department of Norte de Santander and nucleus of the Metropolitan Area of Cúcuta. The city is located in the homonymous valley, at the foot of the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes, on the border with Venezuela.

Cúcuta comprises an area of approximately 1119 km, with an urban area of 64 km (divided into 10 communes) and a rural area of 1055 km (divided into 10 townships). The city has a population of 777,106 inhabitants, which makes it the most populous municipality in the department and the sixth most populous municipality in the country. Similarly, its metropolitan area (made up of the municipalities of Villa del Rosario, Los Patios, El Zulia, San Cayetano and Puerto Santander) has an approximate population of 1,046,347.

A cordillera is a chain or network of mountain ranges, such as those in the west coast of the Americas. The term is borrowed from Spanish, where the word comes from cordilla, a diminutive of cuerda ('rope').

The term is most commonly used in physical geography and is particularly applied to the various large mountain systems of the American Cordillera, such as the Andes of South America, and less frequently to other mountain ranges in the "ridge" that rims the Pacific Ocean. In Colombia and Venezuela, cordilleras are named according to their position: Cordillera Occidental, Central, and Oriental. Various local names are used for the cordilleras in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

The Spanish conquest of the Muisca took place from 1537 to 1540. The Muisca were the inhabitants of the central Andean highlands of Colombia before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors. They were organised in a loose confederation of different rulers; the psihipqua of Muyquytá, with his headquarters in Funza, the hoa of Hunza, the iraca of the sacred City of the Sun Sugamuxi, the Tundama of Tundama, and several other independent caciques. The most important rulers at the time of the conquest were psihipqua Tisquesusa, hoa Eucaneme, iraca Sugamuxi and Tundama in the northernmost portion of their territories. The Muisca were organised in small communities of circular enclosures (ca in their language Muysccubbun; literally "language of the people"), with a central square where the bohío of the cacique was located. They were called "Salt People" because of their extraction of salt in various locations throughout their territories, mainly in Zipaquirá, Nemocón, and Tausa. For the main part self-sufficient in their well-organised economy, the Muisca traded with the European conquistadors valuable products as gold, tumbaga (a copper-silver-gold alloy), and emeralds with their neighbouring indigenous groups. In the Tenza Valley, to the east of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense where the majority of the Muisca lived, they extracted emeralds in Chivor and Somondoco. The economy of the Muisca was rooted in their agriculture with main products maize, yuca, potatoes, and various other cultivations elaborated on elevated fields (in their language called tá). Agriculture had started around 3000 BCE on the Altiplano, following the preceramic Herrera Period and a long epoch of hunter-gatherers since the late Pleistocene. The earliest archaeological evidence of inhabitation in Colombia, and one of the oldest in South America, has been found in El Abra, dating to around 12,500 years BP.

The main part of the Muisca civilisation was concentrated on the Bogotá savanna, a flat high plain in the Eastern Ranges of the Andes, far away from the Caribbean coast. The savanna was an ancient lake, that existed until the latest Pleistocene and formed a highly fertile soil for their agriculture. The Muisca were a deeply religious civilisation with a polytheistic society and an advanced astronomical knowledge, which was represented in their complex lunisolar calendar. Men and women had specific and different tasks in their relatively egalitarian society; while the women took care of the sowing, preparation of food, the extraction of salt, and the elaboration of mantles and pottery, the men were assigned to harvesting, warfare, and hunting. The guecha warriors were tasked with the defence of the Muisca territories, mainly against their western neighbours; the Muzo ("Emerald People") and the bellicose Panche. To impress their enemies, the Muisca warriors wore mummies of important ancestors on their backs, while fighting. In their battles, the men used spears, poisoned arrows, and golden knives.

The Altiplano Cundiboyacense (Spanish pronunciation: [altiˈplano kundiβoʝaˈsense]) is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. (Do not confuse with The Altiplano or the Altiplano Nariñense, both further south.) The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Altiplano Cundiboyacense comprises three distinctive flat regions; the Bogotá savanna, the valleys of Ubaté and Chiquinquirá, and the valleys of Duitama and Sogamoso. The average altitude of the altiplano is about 2,600 metres (8,500 ft) above sea level but ranges from roughly 2,500 metres (8,200 ft) to 4,000 metres (13,000 ft).

The Andean region, located in central Colombia, is the most populated natural region of Colombia. With many mountains, the Andes contain most of the country's urban centers. They were also the location of the most significant pre-Columbian indigenous settlements as well as the region with the most European influence due to immigration from the colony to the present day. Beyond the Colombian Massif in the south-western departments of Cauca and Nariño, the Colombian Andes divide into three branches known as "cordilleras" (from the Spanish for mountain range): the West Andes run adjacent to the Pacific coast and is home to the city of Cali. The Central Andes run up the center of the country between the Cauca and Magdalena river valleys (to the west and east respectively) and includes the cities of Medellín, Manizales and Pereira. The East Andes extend northeast towards the Guajira Peninsula, and includes the cities of Bogotá, Bucaramanga and Cúcuta.

The climate and vegetation of the region vary considerably according to altitude, but as a general rule the land can be divided into the tierra caliente (hot land) of river valleys and basins below 1,000 m; the more temperate conditions of the tierra templada (temperate land, approximately 1,000 m to 2,000 m) and tierra fría (cold land, 2,000 m to 3,200 m), which include the most productive land and most of the population; and the alpine conditions of the zona forestada (forested zone, 3,200 m to 3,900 m), páramos (3,900 m to 4,600 m) and tierra helada (frozen land, 4,600 m and above).

Floridablanca (Spanish pronunciation: [floˌɾiðaˈβlaŋka], locally also simply Florida) is a municipality in the department of Santander situated at an altitude of 925 metres (3,035 ft) in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. It is part of the metropolitan area of the departmental capital Bucaramanga. Floridablanca is known for its parks and the Piedra del Sol, a large rock with spirals and circles carved by the Guane over 1,000 years ago. This city is home of the tallest statue of Jesus Christ in Colombia, "El Santisimo". The statue is 40 metres (130 ft) high and weighs 40 tonnes (88,000 lb). The city is situated along the Ruta Nacional 45A, a branch of the Pan American Highway, connecting the capital Bogotá with Santa Marta at the Caribbean coast and Cúcuta as a gateway to Venezuela. Together with other neighboring municipalities of Bucaramanga, Girón and Piedecuesta, Floridablanca is one of the growth areas for the capital of Santander with numerous constructions happening in recent years.

The Venezuelan Andes (Spanish: Andes Venezolanos) also simply known as the Andes (Spanish: Los Andes) in Venezuela, are a mountain system that form the northernmost extension of the Andes. They are fully identified, both by their geological origin as by the components of the relief, the constituent rocks and the geological structure.

The Venezuelan Andean system represents the terminal bifurcation of the Cordillera Oriental de Colombia, which in Venezuelan territory consists of two mountainous branches: the Sierra de Perijá, smaller, slightly displaced from southwest to northeast with 7,500 km in Venezuela; and a larger, frankly oriented Southwest to northeast with about 40,000 km, the Cordillera de Mérida, commonly known as the proper Venezuelan Andes. The highest point in Venezuela is located in this natural region. It covers around 5.2% of the national territory, being the 4th largest natural region in Venezuela.

Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada, also known as the Liberation Campaign of 1819, was part of the Colombian and Venezuelan wars of independence and was one of the many military campaigns fought by Simón Bolívar. In 1819 Bolívar led a combined New Granadan and Venezuelan Army in a campaign to liberate New Granada which had been under Spanish control since 1816.

Bolívar marched his army through the flooded plains from Venezuela and entered the Casanare Province with his army in June 1819, combining his forces with those of Francisco de Paula Santander at Tame, Arauca, on 11 June. The combined Patriot force reached the Eastern Range of the Andes on 22 June and began a grueling crossing. On 6 July, the Patriots descended from the Andes arriving at Socha and into the valleys of central New Granada. After a brief convalescence, the Patriots fought a series of battles against the III Division of the Royalist army of Spanish colonel José María Barreiro Manjón, with the campaign culminating at the decisive Battle of Boyacá, where Bolivar's forces routed and dismantled the Royalist Army entering Santa Fe de Bogotá triumphantly 3 days later.