Bogotá D.C. is Colombia's capital district, a high-altitude Andean metropolis of roughly eight million people spread across a plateau at 2,640 metres (8,660 ft). The city pairs a dense colonial core in La Candelaria — home to the Gold Museum and the Botero collection — with the glass towers of the northern business districts, a 200-kilometre cycle network, and the green wall of the eastern mountains rising directly behind the historic centre.
Bogotá's history runs from a Muisca chiefdom on a lake-strewn Andean plateau, through 280 years as a Spanish colonial and then viceregal capital, to a 20th century marked by one of the most destructive urban riots in the Americas and, after 1991, a widely studied civic recovery. The Spanish founded Santa Fe in 1538 on the site the Muisca knew as Bacatá; the city became the seat of the Real Audiencia in 1550 and capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1739. The independence movement began here on 20 July 1810 with the flower-vase quarrel at the Casa del Florero, and Simón Bolívar entered the city in triumph on 10 August 1819 after the Battle of Boyacá. The assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on 9 April 1948 set off the Bogotazo, which burned much of the colonial centre and opened the decade of La Violencia; the 1985 M-19 seizure of the Palacio de Justicia on the Plaza de Bolívar left around 94 people dead. The 1991 Constitution made Bogotá a Distrito Capital with an elected mayor, and the administrations that followed built TransMilenio, the Ciclovía and the district library network that reshaped the modern city.
Historical timeline
Key moments that shaped Bogotá D.C..
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1
The Muisca Confederation
The Muisca people farm the Sabana de Bogotá in a confederation of chiefdoms, with the zipa ruling from Bacatá and Funza and the salt, emerald and cotton trade linking the plateau to the lowlands
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2
Foundation of Santa Fe
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founds Santa Fe de Bogotá with 12 huts and a chapel, by tradition at the spot now marked by the Chorro de Quevedo in La Candelaria
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3
Seat of the Real Audiencia
The Spanish Crown installs the Real Audiencia of Santa Fe, making the city the administrative and judicial capital of the New Kingdom of Granada
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4
Capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada
After a first, short-lived creation in 1717, the Viceroyalty of New Granada is permanently established with Santa Fe as its capital, governing what is now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama
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5
The Royal Botanical Expedition
José Celestino Mutis directs the Real Expedición Botánica from Bogotá, producing thousands of botanical plates and training the creole scientists who later led the independence movement
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6
The Grito de Independencia
A staged quarrel over a borrowed flower vase in the shop of the Spanish merchant José González Llorente triggers the uprising that installs a creole junta, the date still kept as Colombia's national day
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7
The Reconquista and the Reign of Terror
Pablo Morillo retakes the city for Spain and executes creole leaders and scientists, among them Francisco José de Caldas and Policarpa Salavarrieta, on and around the Plaza Mayor
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8
Bolívar Enters Bogotá
Three days after the Battle of Boyacá, Simón Bolívar enters the city as the viceroy flees, ending Spanish rule and opening the era of Gran Colombia
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9
The Septembrine Conspiracy
Conspirators storm the Palacio de San Carlos to kill Bolívar; Manuela Sáenz delays them long enough for him to escape through a window, an episode that earned her the title Libertadora del Libertador
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10
The First Tram
A mule-drawn tramway opens between the Plaza de Bolívar and Chapinero, beginning the northward expansion that defines the modern shape of the city
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11
The Bogotazo
The assassination of the liberal leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán on Carrera 7 sets off riots that destroy much of the colonial centre, kill several thousand people and open the period known as La Violencia
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12
Creation of the Special District
Bogotá annexes the neighbouring municipalities of Usaquén, Suba, Engativá, Fontibón, Bosa and Usme, roughly tripling its area and creating the framework of the present district
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13
Siege of the Palacio de Justicia
M-19 guerrillas seize the Palace of Justice on the Plaza de Bolívar and the army storms the building; around 94 people die, including 11 Supreme Court justices, and the building is gutted by fire
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14
Bogotá Becomes a Distrito Capital
The new Colombian Constitution reorganises the city as the Distrito Capital with an elected mayor and 20 local districts, setting up the reform administrations of the following decade
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15
TransMilenio Opens
The bus rapid transit system launches on the Avenida Caracas corridor under mayor Enrique Peñalosa, alongside the expansion of the Ciclovía and the district library network
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16
Building the Metro
Construction begins on Line 1 of the Bogotá Metro, a 24-kilometre elevated route from Bosa to Calle 72, the first rail transit in the city since the tram closed in 1951
Historical eras
The chapters of Bogotá D.C.'s past.
Muisca Bacatá
A confederation of chiefdoms farming maize and potatoes on the plateau, ruled from Bacatá by the zipa and trading salt, emeralds and cotton cloth across the Andes
Colonial Santa Fe
A grid-planned Spanish town of churches, convents and encomienda estates, seat of the Real Audiencia from 1550 and the administrative centre of the New Kingdom of Granada
Viceregal Capital and Enlightenment
The city governs the Viceroyalty of New Granada, hosts the Royal Botanical Expedition and develops the creole intellectual class that would lead the break with Spain
Independence and the Early Republic
From the Grito de Independencia through the Reconquista, Gran Colombia and its collapse, to the civil wars between centralists and federalists that shaped the Colombian state
Modernisation and Growth
Trams, railways, electricity and the 1938 fourth-centenary public works transform a town of 100,000 into a capital spreading north along Carrera 7 and Chapinero
The Bogotazo and La Violencia
The destruction of the colonial centre in April 1948, mass rural migration into the city, the guerrilla conflict and the 1985 Palace of Justice siege
The Distrito Capital
Constitutional reform, the civic-culture campaigns of Antanas Mockus, TransMilenio, the Ciclovía, the BibloRed libraries and the metro now under construction
Historical sites
Places where Bogotá D.C.'s past comes alive.
Plaza de Bolívar
Laid out as the Plaza Mayor in 1539, the square has served as market, bullring, execution ground and parade space, and holds Pietro Tenerani's 1846 bronze of Simón Bolívar, the first public monument erected in the city.
Where: La Candelaria, Bogotá
Admission: Free
Museo de la Independencia - Casa del Florero
The corner house that held the shop of the Spanish merchant José González Llorente, where a quarrel over a borrowed flower vase on 20 July 1810 triggered the uprising that became Colombian independence. The museum displays the surviving vase fragments and the documents of the first junta.
Where: Plaza de Bolívar, La Candelaria
Admission: Approximately COP 3,000 (approx $0.95); free on Sundays
Catedral Primada de Bogotá
The fourth church on the site, built to designs by the Capuchin friar Domingo de Petrés after earthquakes and structural failure destroyed its predecessors. It holds the remains of the city's founder Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and of the independence-era composer and painter families of Santa Fe.
Where: Plaza de Bolívar, La Candelaria
Admission: Free
Capitolio Nacional
The seat of the Colombian Congress, begun in 1848 to a design by the Danish architect Thomas Reed and finished only in 1926 after civil wars repeatedly halted the work. Its Ionic colonnade and the interior Patio de los Libertadores are among the finest 19th-century public architecture in the country.
Where: South side of the Plaza de Bolívar
Admission: Free; guided visits arranged in advance through the Congress protocol office
Casa de Nariño
The presidential palace, built on the birthplace of Antonio Nariño, the translator of the Rights of Man whose 1794 printing helped ignite the independence movement. The grounds hold the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional of 1803, the oldest purpose-built observatory in the Americas.
Where: La Candelaria, two blocks south of the Plaza de Bolívar
Admission: Free; visits must be requested in advance with passport details
Museo Colonial
Colombia's first museum dedicated to the colonial period, occupying the former Jesuit Colegio Máximo beside the church of San Ignacio. Its collection of viceregal painting includes the largest holding of work by Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos, the leading painter of 17th-century Santa Fe.
Where: La Candelaria
Admission: COP 6,000 for adults (approx $1.90); free for visitors over 60 and on the last Sunday of the month
Iglesia Museo Santa Clara
A single-nave church built for the Poor Clares and secularised in 1968, retaining its gilded mudéjar coffered ceiling, 148 paintings and more than 100 polychrome sculptures in close to their original arrangement, the most complete colonial interior surviving in Bogotá.
Where: La Candelaria
Admission: COP 6,000 ages 18-59 (approx $1.90); free over 60, free on the last Sunday of the month and Wednesdays 3:00PM-5:00PM
Iglesia de San Francisco
The oldest surviving church in Bogotá, begun by the Franciscans in the 1550s and completed in 1621, holding a monumental carved and gilded mudéjar altarpiece of the 1620s that is the finest colonial retablo in the country.
Where: Avenida Jiménez with Carrera 7
Admission: Free
Palacio de San Carlos
The presidential residence of the early republic, and the building from which Simón Bolívar escaped through a window on the night of 25 September 1828 when conspirators stormed it to kill him, after Manuela Sáenz delayed them at the door.
Where: La Candelaria
Admission: Exterior only; the building houses the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Casa Museo Quinta de Bolívar
The estate granted to Simón Bolívar by the Congress of Gran Colombia in 1820 and used by him between campaigns until 1830, preserved with period furnishings, his campaign effects and a walled garden at the foot of the eastern hills.
Where: Below Monserrate, La Candelaria
Admission: Around COP 5,000 (approx $1.60); free on Sundays and Wednesdays 3:00PM-5:00PM
Museo Nacional de Colombia
Founded in 1823 and the oldest museum in Colombia, housed since 1948 in Thomas Reed's cruciform Panóptico, a prison completed in 1874 whose cell blocks now hold archaeology, colonial history, the independence wars and 20th-century Colombian art.
Where: Carrera 7 at Calle 28, Santa Fe
Admission: COP 3,000 for adults (approx $0.95); free on Sundays; cash only
Museo Casa de Moneda
The building where the Spanish Crown struck the first gold coins minted in the Americas from 1621, now a Banco de la República museum tracing Colombian currency from Muisca tunjos and colonial doubloons to the modern peso.
Where: La Candelaria
Admission: Free
Museo Arqueológico Casa del Marqués de San Jorge
A two-courtyard colonial mansion built for the Marqués de San Jorge, now holding one of the largest collections of pre-Hispanic ceramics in Colombia, with Muisca, Quimbaya, Tairona, Nariño and Zenú vessels arranged by culture.
Where: La Candelaria
Admission: Approximately COP 5,000 (approx $1.60)
Cementerio Central
The city's oldest formal cemetery and a declared national monument, holding the tombs of presidents, the poet José Asunción Silva and the leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, and a wall of marble ellipses that became a focus of popular devotion.
Where: Los Mártires, western central Bogotá
Admission: Free
Centro de Memoria, Paz y Reconciliación
A district memorial centre built on the former northern block of the Cementerio Central, documenting the victims of Colombia's armed conflict through archives, temporary exhibitions and a rammed-earth monument by Juan Manuel Peláez.
Where: Beside the Cementerio Central, Teusaquillo
Admission: Free
Museums
Curated collections that tell Bogotá D.C.'s story.
Museo del Oro
Museo Nacional de Colombia
Museo de la Independencia - Casa del Florero
Museo Colonial
Museo Casa de Moneda
Museo Arqueológico Casa del Marqués de San Jorge
Casa Museo Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
Historical tours
Guided experiences that bring history to life.
La Candelaria walking tour
Free-walking and paid guided circuits of the colonial quarter covering the Plaza de Bolívar, the Casa del Florero, Chorro de Quevedo and the university streets
Bogotá Graffiti Tour
A street-art walk through La Candelaria run by a collective of working artists, covering the 2011 decriminalisation of graffiti and the murals it produced
Museum circuit of the Banco de la República
A self-guided route linking the Museo del Oro, Museo Botero, Casa de Moneda and the bank's art collection, all within eight blocks of each other
Independence route day trip
A drive north to the Puente de Boyacá battlefield where Bolívar's victory of 7 August 1819 decided Colombian independence, usually combined with Villa de Leyva or Zipaquirá