Indigenous peoples in Colombia
Ethnic groups that have inhabited Colombia before European colonization / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Indigenous peoples of Colombia?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Indigenous peoples of Colombia are the ethnic groups who have inhabited Colombia since before the Spanish colonization of Colombia, in the early 16th century.
Total population | |
---|---|
1,905,617 (2018 Census) 4.31% of Colombia's population[1][2] c. 5,200,000 (Estimation) ~10% of Colombia’s population[3][4][5] 1.8%,[6] 2%,[7][8] 9.5%[9] or 10.4%[4] of Colombians (external sources) | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Throughout the country, especially in Andean Highlands, Caribbean Region and Amazonía Region | |
Languages | |
Indigenous languages and Spanish | |
Religion | |
Roman Catholicism, Native American religions |
Estimates on the percentage of Colombians who are indigenous vary, from 3% or 1.5 million to 10% or 5 million. According to the 2018 Colombian census, they comprise 4.4% of the country's population, belonging to 115 different tribes, up from 3.4% in the 2005 Colombian census.[1][2] However, a Latinobarómetro survey from the same year found that 10.4% of Colombian respondents self-identified as indigenous.[4][5] The most recent estimation of the number of indigenous peoples of Colombia places it at around 9.5% of the population and has been growing since an all-time low of 1965, where it was estimated only 1% of Colombians were indigenous.[10] The 2023 estimate indicates Colombia as having the seventh highest percentage of Amerindians in the Americas with only Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, and Panama having a higher estimated percentage of Amerindians than Colombia.[11]
Approximately two thirds of the registered Indigenous peoples live in La Guajira, Cauca, Nariño, Córdoba and Sucre Departments. Amazon Basin, a sparsely populated region, is home to over 70 different Indigenous ethnic groups.[1]
Both historically and in recent times, they have been subjected to violence and oppression, ranging from land theft to massacres to the targeted killings of Indigenous activists and politicians.[12]