Viceroyalty of New Granada in the context of "Immigration to Colombia"

The Viceroyalty of Peru (Spanish: Virreinato del Perú), officially known as the Kingdom of Peru (Spanish: Reino del Perú), was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed from the capital of Lima. Along with the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Peru was one of two Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

The Spanish did not resist the Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian established by the Treaty of Tordesillas. The treaty was rendered meaningless between 1580 and 1640 while Spain controlled Portugal. The creation during the 18th century of the Viceroyalties of New Granada and Río de la Plata (at the expense of Peru's territory) reduced the importance of Lima and shifted the lucrative Andean trade to Buenos Aires, while the fall of the mining and textile production accelerated the progressive decay of the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country located at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country's over 4 million inhabitants.

Before the arrival of Spanish colonists in the 16th century, Panama was inhabited by a number of different indigenous tribes. It broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined the Republic of Gran Colombia, a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela. After Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada eventually became the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the construction of the Panama Canal to be completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. The 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties agreed to transfer the canal from the United States to Panama on December 31, 1999. The surrounding territory was returned first, in 1979.

Bogotá (/ˌboʊɡəˈtɑː/, also UK: /ˌbɒɡ-/, US: /ˈboʊɡətɑː/, Spanish pronunciation: [boɣoˈta] ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (Spanish: [ˌsanta ˈfe ðe βoɣoˈta]; lit. 'Holy Faith of Bogotá') during the Spanish Imperial period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital and largest city of Colombia. The city is administered as the Capital District, as well as the capital of, though not politically part of, the surrounding department of Cundinamarca. Bogotá is a territorial entity of the first order, with the same administrative status as the departments of Colombia. It is the main political, economic, administrative, industrial, cultural, aeronautical, technological, scientific, medical and educational center of the country and northern South America.

Bogotá was founded as the capital of the New Kingdom of Granada on 6 August 1538 by Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada after a harsh expedition into the Andes conquering the Muisca, the indigenous inhabitants of the Altiplano. Santafé (its name after 1540) became the seat of the government of the Spanish Royal Audiencia of the New Kingdom of Granada (created in 1550), and then after 1717 it was the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. After the Battle of Boyacá on 7 August 1819, Bogotá became the capital of the independent nation of Gran Colombia. It was Simón Bolívar who rebaptized the city with the name of Bogotá, as a way of honoring the Muisca people and as an emancipation act towards the Spanish crown. Hence, since the Viceroyalty of New Granada's independence from the Spanish Empire and during the formation of present-day Colombia, Bogotá has remained the capital of this territory.

The New Kingdom of Granada (Spanish: Nuevo Reino de Granada), or Kingdom of New Granada, was the name given to a group of colonial-era Spanish ultramarine provinces in northern South America governed by the president of the Real Audiencia of Santa Fe, an area corresponding mainly to modern-day Colombia. The conquistadors originally organized it as a province with a Real Audiencia within the Viceroyalty of Peru and thus having a certain level of independence from it. The audiencia was established by the crown in 1549.

Later, the kingdom would become the Viceroyalty of New Granada, first in 1717, and permanently in 1739. After several attempts to set up independent states in the 1810s, the kingdom and the viceroyalty ceased to exist altogether around 1819 with the establishment of the first Republic of Colombia.

The Colombian War of Independence began on July 20, 1810 when the Junta de Santa Fe was formed in Santa Fe de Bogota, the capital of the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, to govern the territory autonomously from Spain. The event inspired similar independence movements across South America, and triggered an almost decade-long rebellion culminating in the founding of the Republic of Colombia, which spanned present-day Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela, along with parts of northern Peru and northwestern Brazil. Colombia was the first Spanish colony in South America to declare independence from Spain in 1810.

Although Gran Colombia would ultimately dissolve in 1831, it was for a time among the most powerful countries in the Western Hemisphere, and played an influential role in shaping the political development of other newly sovereign South American states. The modern nation-state of Colombia recognizes the event as its national independence day which broke away from Spanish rule that led the first independent nation of South America as well as the third oldest independent republic in the Western Hemisphere after the United States from the American Revolution against the British and Haiti from the Haitian Revolution against the French and white settlers.

The Spanish reconquest of New Granada in 1815–1816 was part of the Spanish American wars of independence in South America and Colombian War of Independence. Shortly after the Napoleonic Wars ended, Ferdinand VII, recently restored to the throne in Spain, decided to send military forces to retake most of the northern South American colonies, which had established autonomous juntas and independent states. The Spanish expeditionary army under the command of Lieutenant General Pablo Morillo, with support from loyal colonial troops, completed the reconquest of New Granada by taking Bogotá on 6 May 1816.

Mérida, officially known as Santiago de los Caballeros de Mérida, is the capital of the municipality of Libertador and the state of Mérida, and is one of the main cities of the Venezuelan Andes. It was founded in 1558 by Captain Juan Rodríguez Suárez, forming part of Nueva Granada, but later became part of the Captaincy General of Venezuela and played an active role in the War of Independence.

The capital city's population is 199,878 inhabitants, and the metropolitan area (including the municipalities of Libertador, Campo Elías, Sucre, and Santos Marquina) reaches 392,751 people (2011 census). The city accounts for 24% of the total population of Mérida State. It is home to the University of Los Andes and the Archdiocese of Mérida. It also has the highest and longest cable car in the world. It is the largest student and tourist center of western Venezuela. The mass transit system (Trolebús Mérida) is available as a means of tourist transport.