Department of Colombia
Department in Amazon natural region, Colombia
Caquetá Department (Spanish pronunciation: [kakeˈta] departments ofColombia . It is located within the country'sAmazon natural region and theAmazon rainforest . Its capital is the city ofFlorencia .
In thepre-Columbian era , the department was occupied byindigenous groups , mainly theAndaquí ,Koreguaje ,Tama andMacaguaje peoples.[ 4]
AfterLa Violencia [ 5]
Caquetá was established as a department in 1981.[ 6] :3 Starting in the 1980s, Caquetá Department was a hot spot in theColombian conflict ,[ 7] coca trade and large areas being under control of guerilla or drug trafficking groups.[ 8] [ 9] [ 10] La Montañita in particular was a stronghold for armed groups such as theRevolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).[ 5]
On 21 December 2009, then Governor of Caquetá DepartmentLuis Francisco Cuellar was kidnapped after a shoot out with his security;[ 11] [ 12]
Following the2016 peace agreement with FARC , all of Caquetá's municipalities were designated asTerritorial Approach Development Program (PDET) territories.[ 13] [ 14] [ 15] [ 16]
Geography and nature [ edit ] Located in theAmazon natural region ,[ 17] Cauca andHuila to the west, the department ofMeta to the north, the department ofGuaviare to the northeast, the department ofVaupés to the east, and the departments ofAmazonas andPutumayo to the south covering a total area of 88,965 square kilometres (34,350 sq mi), thethird largest in the country .[ 18] [ 19] Amazon basin .[ 20] Japurá River , known in Colombia as the Caquetá River, is one of the bodies of water which flow through the department.[ 9] Orteguaza River .[ 21]
The department has an equatorial superhumid (Af i)Köppen climate classification . A majority of the land is used for cattle farming.[ 22] :2
The department has over 120 species of birds.[ 23]
Deforestation has severely impacted Caquetá,[ 24] indigenous territory , with forests often being destroyed to make room for cattle farming.[ 25] [ 26] [ 27]
There are 16 municipalities in Caquetá Department:Albania ,Belén de Andaquies ,Cartagena del Chairá ,Curillo ,El Doncello ,El Paujil , Florencia ,La Montañita ,Milán ,Morelia ,Puerto Rico ,San José del Fragua ,San Vicente del Caguán ,Solano ,Solita , andValparaíso .[ 28] [ 20] Florencia .[ 19]
Map of municipalities in Caquetá Department. Historical population Year Pop. ±% 1973 180,297 — 1985 264,507 +46.7% 1993 367,898 +39.1% 2005 420,337 +14.3% 2018 401,849 −4.4% Source:[ 29]
The total population of Caquetá department in the 2018 census was 401,849 people with a density of 4.46 people per square kilometer.[ 1] National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE).[ 30] Human Development Index was 0.708 in 2022.[ 3]
The indigenous communities which inhabit the department include theWitoto ,Coreguaje ,Inga ,Emberá ,Pijao ,Paez , andGuambiano peoples.[ 31]
Like all departments in Colombia, Caquetá has a Governor and a Departmental Assembly.[ 32]
The flag of Caquetá Department has seven horizontal stripes (four green and three white) and 16 yellow stars in a circle, with one in the center, in the top left corner against a white background.[ 40] [ 41] [ 41]
The crest of Caquetá Department is divided into four quadrants, with a crown of feathers on top of it and a red ribbon below it. The crown of feathers is an example of a traditional indigenous attire worn by leaders during special ceremonies, it represents the department's indigenous history and communities.[ 40]
Church in El Doncello
Indigenous man in Caquetá
Edificio Curiplaya, a national monument located in Florencia
South-central Florencia
Cascada de Anayasita, a waterfall in El Doncello
^a b "Viviendas, Hogares y Personas (VIHOPE)" .DANE . Retrieved23 July 2025 .^ "Producto Interno Bruto por departamento" ,www.dane.gov.co ^a b "Sub-national HDI - Area Database - Global Data Lab" .hdi.globaldatalab.org . Retrieved13 September 2018 .^ "Historia del Caquetá: Historia Departamento del Caquetá Colombia" .todacolombia.com (in Spanish). Retrieved24 July 2025 .^a b Johnson, McKenzie F.; Rodríguez, Luz A.; Quijano Hoyos, Manuela (2 January 2025)."Governing after FARC: environmental peacebuilding in Caquetá, Colombia" The Journal of Peasant Studies .52 (1):129– 156.doi :10.1080/03066150.2024.2326577 .ISSN 0306-6150 . ^ Bustos, Sebastián; Cheston, Timothy; Rao, Nidhi (February 2023),"The Missing Economic Diversity of the Colombian Amazon: An Economic Complexity Approach for Caquetá, Guaviare, and Putumayo" ,CID Research Fellows and Graduate Student Working Paper , 2023, no. 156,Cambridge, Massachusetts :Harvard University ^ "A case study of the FARC peace agreement impact on land markets in Caquetá, Colombia - Colombia | ReliefWeb" .Relief Web . 30 September 2024. Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ Steffens, Gena (13 May 2016)."Paradise found in Colombia's Caquetá department" .The City Paper Bogotá . Retrieved23 July 2025 . ^a b "Caquetá-Japurá | AMAZON WATERS" .en.aguasamazonicas.org . 25 July 2022. Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ Villamizar, Laura Beltrán (13 April 2019)."In Colombia's Coca Heartland, Photos And Drawings Show Life Between War And Peace" .NPR . Retrieved24 July 2025 . ^ "Farc capture Colombian governor" .RFI . Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ "Kidnapped Colombian governor found dead" .BBC . Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ "Todo sobre los PDET Programas de desarrollo con enfoque territorial" .www.renovacionterritorio.gov.co (in Spanish). Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ "Caquetá recibirá $400 mil millones para fortalecer el desarrollo de los municipios PDET" .www.rtvcnoticias.com (in Spanish). Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ "Programa de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial PDET: PATR Subregión Cuenca del Caguán y Piedemonte Caqueteño" .www.caqueta.gov.co . Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ Londoño, Rocío (3 July 2017)."Los programas de desarrollo territorial: ¿qué son y cómo van funcionar?" .Razón Pública (in Spanish). Retrieved24 July 2025 . ^ Ruiz-Agudelo, César Augusto; Gutiérrez-Bonilla, Francisco de Paula; Cortes-Gómez, Angela María; Suarez, Andrés (1 December 2022)."A first approximation to the Colombian Amazon basin remnant natural capital. Policy and development implications" .Trees, Forests and People .10 100334.Bibcode :2022TFP....1000334R .doi :10.1016/j.tfp.2022.100334 .hdl :11323/9593 ISSN 2666-7193 . ^ "Caquetá: Departamento del Caquetá Colombia" .todacolombia.com (in Spanish). Retrieved24 July 2025 .^a b Ospino, Luis (4 October 2023)."Exploring the Five Largest Departments of Colombia" .Colombia One: News from Colombia and the World . Retrieved23 July 2025 . ^a b "Municipios del Caquetá: División Política Departamento del Caquetá Colombia" .todacolombia.com (in Spanish). Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ "Nature & Indigenous Culture: José Alfonso Ovalle Explains Why Caquetá Is A Must-Visit Region of Colombia" .Finance Colombia . Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ Garzón, Natasha V.; Rodríguez León, Carlos H.; Ceccon, Eliane; Pérez, Daniel R. (September 2020)."Ecological restoration-based education in the Colombian Amazon: toward a new society–nature relationship" .Restoration Ecology .28 (5). Society for Ecological Restoration:1053– 1060.Bibcode :2020ResEc..28.1053G .doi :10.1111/rec.13216 . ^ Procolombia."Department of Caquetá: jungle, rivers and Amazonian culture" .colombia.co . Retrieved23 July 2025 . ^ Bot, Lifegate (18 December 2019)."The high price of peace in Colombia: deforestation in the Amazon" .LifeGate . Retrieved24 July 2025 . ^ Rasolt, Daniel Henryk (15 January 2020)."The Koreguaje Tribe: Threatened Guardians of the Northwest Amazon • The Revelator" .The Revelator . Retrieved24 July 2025 . ^ Dávalos, Liliana M.; Sanchez, Karina M.; Armenteras, Dolors (1 November 2016)."Deforestation and Coca Cultivation Rooted in Twentieth-Century Development Projects" BioScience .66 (11):974– 982.doi :10.1093/biosci/biw118 .ISSN 0006-3568 . ^ "Despite massive deforestation in Colombia, hope remains for conservation" .NBC News . 9 September 2018. Retrieved24 July 2025 .^ "Latin America & The Caribbean Weekly Situation Update as of 18 July 2025 | OCHA" .UNOCHA . Retrieved23 July 2025 .^ "Reloj de Población" .DANE . Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadísitica. Archived fromthe original on 16 January 2018. Retrieved6 July 2017 .^ Reports, Colombia (15 July 2022)."Caqueta | Colombia Reports" .Colombia News . Retrieved23 July 2025 . ^ Team, Amazon Conservation (15 October 2015)."The Caquetá government makes history for the rights of indigenous communities" .Amazon Conservation Team . Retrieved23 July 2025 . ^ "Information about departments of Colombia" .ColombiaInfo.org - The Colombia Information Site! . Retrieved15 July 2025 .^ "Resultados Elecciones Gobernador de Caquetá" .Gestion de Datos Abiertos . Archived fromthe original on 3 January 2022. Retrieved23 July 2025 .^ "Gobernadora interina para Caquetá" .La Nación (in European Spanish). Archived fromthe original on 24 December 2021. Retrieved23 July 2025 .^ "La quindiana Martha Liliana Agudelo fue elegida gobernadora de Caquetá" .Cronica del Quindio (in European Spanish). Archived fromthe original on 3 January 2022. Retrieved23 July 2025 .^a b "En el nuevo mapa político coaliciones se quedaron con 14 alcaldías y 25 gobernaciones" .La República (in Spanish). Archived fromthe original on 13 July 2020. Retrieved23 July 2025 .^ Casa Editorial El Tiempo (7 June 2019)."Gobierno designa gobernador encargado para Caquetá" .El Tiempo (in Spanish). Archived fromthe original on 14 March 2020. Retrieved23 July 2025 . ^ "Decreto 1673 del 2019" (PDF) .Ministry of the Interior of Colombia . Retrieved22 February 2022 .^ "Luis Francisco Ruiz, nuevo gobernador del Caquetá; Marlon Monsalve, nuevo alcalde de Florencia" .PARES (in Spanish). 23 November 2023. Retrieved23 July 2025 .^a b "Símbolos" .caqueta.gov.co (in European Spanish). Archived fromthe original on 1 May 2013. Retrieved23 July 2025 .^a b "Bandera del Caquetá: Bandera Departamento del Caquetá Colombia" .todacolombia.com (in Spanish). Retrieved24 July 2025 .
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