Guajira Peninsula in the context of "Wayuu language"

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuela to the east and northeast, Brazil to the southeast, Peru and Ecuador to the south and southwest, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and Panama to the northwest. Colombia is divided into 32 departments. The Capital District of Bogotá is also the country's largest city hosting the main financial and cultural hub. Other major urban areas include Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa Marta, Cúcuta, Ibagué, Villavicencio and Bucaramanga. It covers an area of 1,141,748 square kilometers (440,831 sq mi) and has a population of around 52 million. Its rich cultural heritage—including language, religion, cuisine, and art—reflects its history as a colony, fusing cultural elements brought by immigration from Europe and the Middle East, with those brought by the African diaspora, as well as with those of the various Indigenous civilizations that predate colonization. Spanish is the official language, although Creole, English and 64 other languages are recognized regionally.

Colombia has been home to many indigenous peoples and cultures since at least 12,000 BCE. The Spanish first landed in La Guajira in 1499, and by the mid-16th century, they had colonized much of present-day Colombia, and established the New Kingdom of Granada, with Santa Fe de Bogotá as its capital. Independence from the Spanish Empire is considered to have been declared in 1810, with what is now Colombia emerging as the United Provinces of New Granada. After a brief Spanish reconquest, Colombian independence was secured and the period of Gran Colombia began in 1819. The new polity experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858) and then the United States of Colombia (1863), before becoming a centralised republic—the current Republic of Colombia—in 1886. With the backing of the United States and France, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, resulting in Colombia's present borders. Beginning in the 1960s, the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict and political violence, both of which escalated in the 1990s. Since 2005, there has been significant improvement in security, stability, and rule of law, as well as unprecedented economic growth and development. Colombia is recognized for its healthcare system, being the best healthcare in Latin America according to the World Health Organization and 22nd in the world. Its diversified economy is the third-largest in South America, with macroeconomic stability and favorable long-term growth prospects.

The Gulf of Venezuela is a gulf of the Caribbean Sea bounded by the Venezuelan states of Zulia and Falcón and by La Guajira Department, Colombia. The western side is formed by the Guajira Peninsula. A 54 km (34 mi) strait connects it with Maracaibo Lake to the south.

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).

La Guajira (Spanish pronunciation: [la ɣwaˈxiɾa]) is a department of Colombia. It occupies most of the Guajira Peninsula in the northeast region of the country, on the Caribbean Sea and bordering Venezuela, at the northernmost tip of South America. The capital city of the department is Riohacha.

Various indigenous tribes have populated the arid plains of the region long before the Spanish expeditions reached the Americas. In 1498, Alonso de Ojeda sailed around the peninsula of La Guajira, but the first European to set foot in what is known today as La Guajira was the Spanish explorer Juan de la Cosa in 1499. During the colonial era, the territory of La Guajira was disputed by the governors of Santa Marta and Venezuela, owing to deposits of pearls. English pirates, Frenchmen, and Germans also fought for control of the territory.

A witness hill is a type of landform created from the erosion of the earth. It is a testimony of the evolution and retreat of a platform or cuesta relief, that is, it is a rest of the platform in a relief where there are layers of hard and soft rocks arranged horizontally in which erosion has sculpted landscapes that are also horizontal. As the erosion produced by the rivers increases in the soft layers, hills are formed, and if the plateau is attacked by erosion from all sides, the witness hills with flat summits appear. They are therefore, the "witnesses" of the platform that existed in that place millions of years ago.

Some examples of this type of geological formation are: Pilot Mountain, North Carolina, Dori Plateau, Burkina Faso, La Teta Hill, La Guajira Peninsula and the Hills of Guayana, Venezuela. These hills are quite common in the sedimentary basins of the Meseta Central of the Iberian Peninsula, in the Ebro Depression and in the tabular reliefs.