Is a constitutional republic in northwestern South America. Colombia is bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the northwest by Panama; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. Colombia also shares maritime borders with Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. With a population of nearly 45 million people, Colombia has the 29th largest population in the world and the second largest in South America, after Brazil. Colombia has the third largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico and Spain. The territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous nations including the Muisca, Quimbaya, and Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of conquest and colonization killing or taking as slaves almost 90% of that native population, and then creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada (comprising modern-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, the northwest region of Brazil and Panama) with its capital in Bogota. Independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 "Gran Colombia" had collapsed with the secession of Venezuela and Ecuador. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada. The new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation (1858), and then the United States of Colombia (1863), before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Panama seceded in 1903 under pressure to fulfill financial responsibilities towards the United States government to build the Panama Canal. Colombia has a long tradition of constitutional government. The Liberal and Conservative parties, founded in 1848 and 1849 respectively, are two of the oldest surviving political parties in the Americas. However, tensions between the two have frequently erupted into violence, most notably in the Thousand Days War (1899–1902) and La Violencia, beginning in 1948. Since the 1960s, government forces, left-wing insurgents and right-wing paramilitaries have been engaged in the continent's longest-running armed conflict. Fuelled by the cocaine trade, this escalated dramatically in the 1980s. However, the insurgents lack the military or popular support necessary to overthrow the government, and in the recent decade (2000s) the violence has decreased significantly. Many paramilitary groups have demobilized as part of a controversial peace process with the government, and the guerrillas have lost control in many areas where they once dominated. Meanwhile Colombia's homicide rate, for many years one of the highest in Latin America, has almost halved since 2002. Colombia is a standing middle power with the fourth largest economy in Latin America and a major impact of poverty. It is very ethnically diverse, and the interaction between descendants of the original native inhabitants, Spanish colonists, Africans brought as slaves and twentieth-century immigrants from Europe and the Middle East has produced a rich cultural heritage. This has also been influenced by Colombia's varied geography. The majority of the urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains, but Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines. Ecologically, Colombia is one of the world's 18 megadiverse countries (the most biodiverse per unit area). Etymology The word "Colombia" comes from Christopher Columbus (Spanish: Cristobal Colon). It was conceived by the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, but especially to those territories and colonies under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was later adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819, formed out of the territories of the old Viceroyalty of New Granada (modern-day Colombia, Panama, Venezuela and Ecuador). In 1830, when Venezuela and Ecuador broke away, the Cundinamarca region that remained became a new country — the Republic of New Granada. In 1858 New Granada officially changed its name to the Grenadine Confederation, then in 1863 the United States of Colombia, before finally adopting its present name — the Republic of Colombia — in 1886. History Pre-Colombian era Approximately 10,000 BC, hunter-gatherer societies existed near present-day Bogota (at "El Abra" and "Tequendama") which traded with one another and with cultures living in the Magdalena River Valley. Beginning in the first millennium BC, groups of Amerindians developed the political system of "cacicazgos" with a pyramidal structure of power headed by caciques. Within Colombia, the two cultures with the most complex cacicazgo systems were the Tayronas in the Caribbean Region, and the Muiscas in the highlands around Bogota, both of which were of the Chibcha language family. The Muisca people are considered to have had one of the most developed political systems in South America, afte

The Jeanie Johnston is a replica of a three masted barque that was originally built in Quebec, Canada in 1847 by the Scottish-born shipbuilder John Munn. The original Jeanie Johnston was bought by Tralee, Co. Kerry-based merchants John Donovan & Sons, as a cargo vessel and traded successfully between Tralee and North America for a number of years. The trading pattern was to bring emigrants from Ireland to North America, and then to bring timber back to Europe. She made her maiden emigrant voyage from Blennerville, Co. Kerry to Quebec on April 24, 1848, with 193 emigrants on board, as the effects of the Famine ravaged Ireland. Between 1848 and 1855, the Jeanie Johnston made 16 voyages to North America, sailing to Quebec, Baltimore, and New York. On average, the length of the transatlantic journey was 47 days. The most passengers she ever carried was 254, from Tralee to Quebec on April 17, 1852. To put this number in perspective, the replica ship (which was reduced in size by 30%) is only licensed to carry 40 people. Despite the number of passengers, and the long voyage, no crew or passenger lives were ever lost on board the Jeanie Johnston. This is generally attributed to the captain, James Attridge, not overloading the ship, and the presence of a qualified doctor, Richard Blennerhassett, on board for the passengers. In 1855, the ship was sold to William Johnson of North Shields in England. In 1858, en route to Quebec from Hull with a cargo of timber, she became waterlogged. The crew climbed into the rigging, and after nine days clinging to their slowly-sinking ship, they were rescued by a Dutch ship, the Sophie Elizabeth. Even in her loss, she maintained her perfect safety record. The building of the replica ship began with in-depth research in 1993, and culminated in the completion of the vessel in 2002. An international team of young people, linking Ireland North and South, the United States, Canada and many other countries, built the replica under the supervision of experienced shipwrights. The final cost of just under 16 million Euro was four times the original estimate of 3.81 million Euro. This cost was borne by the Irish government, Kerry County Council, Tralee Town Council, the European Union, the American Ireland Fund, Bord Failte, Shannon Development, Kerry Group, the Training and Employment Authority Foras Aiseanna Saothair and the Irish Department of the Marine, most of which later agreed to write off their losses. According to a valuation obtained by Kerry County Council in 2002, the Jeanie was then worth 1.27 million Euro. The ship was designed by Fred Walker former Chief Naval Architect with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England. The recreation project was modelled closely on that of the 17th century ship, the Batavia. While in the beginning the plan was to build a full-size replica, the final result was a ship scaled down by 30 percent. The ship is built with larch planks on oak frames. To comply with current international maritime regulations, some concessions to modernity had to be made. She has two Caterpillar main engines, two Caterpillar generators, and an emergency generator that is located above the waterline in the forward deckhouse. She is fully compliant to the highest standards of modern ocean-going passenger ships, with steel water-tight bulkheads, down-flooding valves, and fire-fighting equipment. When several of the oak frames were in place and planking was being applied, the density of the oak was checked and the floatation levels estimated. These checks revealed that the ship would float higher than anticipated in the water, causing stability problems. To rectify the problem, several centimetres were cut from the top of the frames, and a steel keel was attached beneath the original oak keel. This is the reason that the Jeanie Johnston draws more water than most ships of her size. One significant consequence of this is that the current draft severely limits the ports into which the ship may enter, ports the original ship would have been able to visit, e.g. Nantucket. In 2003 the replica Jeanie Johnston sailed from Tralee to Canada and the USA. She has taken part in the Tall Ships Race from Waterford to Cherbourg in 2005 and finished 60th out of 65 ships. Other notable Irish tall ships or sail training ships are the Asgard II (lost in the Bay of Biscay in 2008), the Dunbrody, the Lord Rank (N.I.) and the Creidne (I.N.S.). A wooden plaque is mounted on the foremast listing some of the many people involved in the physical building of the ship. Many people gave time, money and support to the project. The reconstruction efforts involved the labor of trainees from different religious and political backgrounds in Northern Ireland’s disadvantaged areas who were funded by the International Fund for Ireland. The aim of the fund being to promote economic and social advance and to encourage contact, dialogue and reconciliation between nationalists and unionists