The capital of Colombia is Bogotá, a city on a high Andean plateau called the Bogotá savanna, at an average altitude of about 2,640 metres in the Eastern Cordillera. The 2018 census counted 7,412,566 people within its limits, making it by far Colombia’s largest city, and later estimates put the figure at around 8 million. Founded by Spanish conquistadors on 6 August 1538 on land of the Muisca people, it holds the presidency, Congress and the highest courts, and no city in the world is both higher and more populous. The best way to understand it is on foot, starting where it began and walking north along its oldest street.
Chorro de Quevedo, Where Jiménez de Quesada Camped in 1538
The walk starts in a small sloping square above Calle 13 and Carrera 2, in the La Candelaria district. This is the Chorro de Quevedo, traditionally held to be the spot where Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada set up camp in 1538. He had left the Caribbean port of Santa Marta on 6 April 1536 with around 800 men, looking for a route to Peru and the gold of El Dorado. By the time the expedition climbed onto the Muisca plateau on 9 March 1537, only 162 were left.
The land belonged to the Muisca, a confederation of chiefdoms that farmed maize on irrigated terraces, traded salt made from brine and worked gold. Their ruler, the zipa Tisquesusa, had his main residence at Bacatá, near today’s town of Funza, and that name is the origin of Bogotá. His realm fell to Quesada and his brother Hernán Pérez on 20 April 1537, and he did not survive the conquest. The following year, Quesada’s men built twelve reed huts, one for each apostle, and a reed chapel, and a Dominican friar said the first mass. The settlement was named Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza, Our Lady of Hope.
The founding was irregular, with no council appointed, so the formal ceremony took place on 27 April 1539 near a recreation ground of the zipa called Theusaquillo, in the presence of the rival conquistadors Sebastián de Belalcázar and Nikolaus Federmann. A decree of Emperor Charles V on 27 July 1540 gave the settlement the title of city and renamed it Santafé, after a town near Granada where Quesada grew up. The square itself got its name much later: an Augustinian priest, Father Quevedo, bought the site in 1832 and built the fountain, which was destroyed in 1896 and later replaced. The small white chapel of San Miguel del Príncipe was rebuilt in 1969 on the site of the city’s first church. Today the lanes around it are full of hostels, street art and bars that still serve chicha, the fermented maize drink the Muisca made.
Down La Candelaria’s Lanes to the Plaza de Bolívar
From the Chorro, the streets fall westward in a strict grid. That grid dates from the 16th century and barely changed until the 1800s: in 1801 the whole city had 173 blocks and 21,394 inhabitants. Most houses had a single storey; the wealthiest families built two and added wooden balconies. Walls were plain, because life happened indoors. Santafé became the seat of the Royal Audiencia of the New Kingdom of Granada in 1550 and, after 1717, capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada.
At the bottom of the slope opens the Plaza de Bolívar, the old Plaza Mayor. Every branch of the state faces it or sits within a few metres. On the south side stands the Capitolio Nacional, home of both chambers of Congress, begun in the 1840s to a design by the Danish architect Thomas Reed and, amid decades of political instability, not finished until 1926. The Casa de Nariño, the president’s residence, lies a few metres away. The Palace of Justice closes the north side, the Palacio Liévano on the west houses the mayor’s office, and the Primatial Cathedral stands on the east, on the ground where a first rough cathedral went up in 1539. In the centre is Pietro Tenerani’s statue of Simón Bolívar, unveiled on 20 July 1846 as the first civic statue in a Colombian square. From the square’s northeastern corner, the sun at the June solstice rises exactly over Monserrate.
The date matters. On 20 July 1810 the city formed a junta that is often treated as Colombia’s declaration of independence. Spanish troops under Pablo Morillo retook the city on 6 May 1816, but after the Battle of Boyacá Bolívar entered on 10 August 1819. He renamed Santafé as Bogotá to honour the Muisca, and it became capital of Gran Colombia. The republic also renamed the colonial streets with numbers, a system still in use: calles run east to west and their numbers rise to the north, while carreras run north to south, numbered from the mountains westward.
Carrera Séptima, Once the Calle Real
From the plaza, the walk turns north up Carrera Séptima, Seventh Avenue. In colonial times this was the Calle Real, the Royal Street linking the Plaza Mayor to the Square of Herbs, today’s Parque Santander. By the early 20th century it was called the Calle del Comercio, with hat shops around the plaza and luxury stores selling imported goods, and between 1870 and 1883 four main banks had opened in the city: Bogotá, Colombia, Popular and Mortgage Credit. The city was growing fast: from about 20,000 people in 1793 to roughly 117,000 in 1912, largely through migration from the eastern highlands.
At the corner of Carrera 7 and Calle 14 stood the office of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the Liberal Party leader expected by many to win the presidency. On 9 April 1948, as he left for lunch, a gunman shot him outside the door. The ten hours of rioting that followed, known as El Bogotazo, left much of downtown destroyed and set off La Violencia, a civil conflict that lasted about a decade.
Nearby, the Banco de la República’s Gold Museum holds the largest collection of gold artefacts on display in the world and receives around 500,000 visitors a year. Its best-known piece, the Muisca raft found in a cave at Pasca in 1969, shows a chief standing on a raft among his attendants, and many scholars link it to the gold-offering ceremony behind the El Dorado legend that drew Quesada here. Further north, at Calle 26, the 50-storey Torre Colpatria rises 196 metres. Opened in 1979, it was Colombia’s tallest building for most of the next four decades and has been lit with colour-changing lights every night since 1998.
Up Monserrate, 3,152 Metres Above the Sea
East of Carrera Séptima, the Eastern Hills rise like a wall and stop the city from spreading that way. The peak directly above downtown is Monserrate, 3,152 metres high, reached by cable car, by funicular or on foot by the pilgrims’ path. Its 17th-century church holds a shrine to El Señor Caído, the Fallen Lord. The mountain was sacred before the Spanish came: the Muisca called it quijicha caca, grandmother’s foot, and a Muisca solar alignment ties it to the Plaza de Bolívar below.
From the summit most of the city is visible to the west, and so is its climate. Bogotá has a subtropical highland climate with almost no seasons of temperature: at El Dorado International Airport the monthly mean stays between 13.6°C and 14.3°C all year. What changes is rain, which comes in two wet seasons, peaking in April–May and October–November, with an annual total of about 877 millimetres. Fog covers the city on around 220 mornings a year, and hail falls about three times a year on average.
Bogotá is one of the highest capitals on Earth, ranked third by altitude; see how it compares in our list of the highest capital cities in the world. The Bogotá River marks the city’s western limit, and far to the south, beyond the last neighbourhoods, lies the Sumapaz Páramo, the largest continuous páramo ecosystem in the world, which falls inside the Capital District itself.
North to Usaquén on a Ciclovía Sunday
The last leg of the walk is best done on a Sunday, heading north. Every Sunday and public holiday from 7 am to 2 pm, over 120 kilometres of main roads close to cars for the Ciclovía, a tradition that began in December 1974 and became an official city programme in 1976. About 2 million people use it on a typical Sunday, cycling, running and skating past aerobics stages set up in the parks.
The route passes through Chapinero and into Usaquén, a separate Cundinamarca town until Bogotá annexed it in 1954. Its colonial core, around the Santa Bárbara church of 1665, now hosts a Sunday flea market. The north, closer to the hills, is where the city’s wealthier districts sit, while the south and southwest, including Ciudad Bolívar, Kennedy, Bosa and Usme, house working-class neighbourhoods and many of the people displaced by Colombia’s armed conflict, more than 260,000 of whom arrived between 1999 and 2005. Linking them is TransMilenio, the bus rapid transit network whose first phase opened in 2000, while construction on the city’s first metro line began in 2021.
By the end of the walk you have crossed five centuries and several climates in a single day. For the mountains that make that possible, read our guide to the Andes Mountains, and for the seats of government in Colombia’s 32 departments, from Medellín to Leticia, see our list of Colombia’s department capitals.
Quick Facts About Bogota
- Country: Colombia
- Continent: South America
- Country population: approximately 53.9 million
- Capital city status: Bogota is the capital of Colombia, the seat of national government, and the location of foreign embassies, parliament, and the head of state's official residence.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the capital of Colombia?
The capital of Colombia is Bogota. Bogota is the seat of national government, hosts most foreign embassies and consulates, and is typically where the head of state and parliament are located.
What continent is Bogota in?
Bogota, the capital of Colombia, is located in South America. As Colombia's capital, Bogota serves as the country's primary connection to the broader South American political, economic, and cultural sphere.
Why is Bogota the capital of Colombia?
Bogota was chosen as the capital of Colombia for reasons that typically combine geography, history, and politics. Capital city selections often reflect a desire for centrality (being accessible from across the country), historical importance (being a longstanding seat of government or culture), or neutrality (being acceptable to multiple regions or ethnic groups within the country). The specific reasons for Bogota's designation are detailed in the city's history above.
What is Bogota known for?
As the capital of Colombia, Bogota is best known for housing the country's central government institutions — parliament, presidential or royal residences, supreme court, and key ministries. It is also typically a major cultural and economic center within Colombia, hosting national museums, embassies, and signature monuments. The introduction and history sections above provide detailed coverage of the city's specific notable institutions and landmarks.
Related Pages
- Colombia Country Guide — full geography, climate, economy, and culture overview
- Flag of Colombia — meaning, history, and design of Colombia's national flag