Meta () is a

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. It is close to the geographic center of the country, to the east of the

Andean The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the List of mountain ranges#Mountain ranges by length, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range i ...

mountains. A large portion of the department, which is also crossed by the

Meta River The Meta River is a major left tributary of the Orinoco River in eastern Colombia and southern Venezuela, South America. The Meta originates in the Eastern Ranges of the Andes and flows through the Meta Department, Colombia as the confluence of ...

, is covered by a grassland plain known as the

Llanos The Llanos (Spanish ''Los Llanos'', "The Plains"; ) is a vast tropical grassland plain situated to the east of the Andes in Colombia and Venezuela, in northwestern South America. It is an ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, sav ...

. Its capital is

Villavicencio Villavicencio () is a city and municipality in Colombia. Capital of Meta Department, it was founded on April 6, 1840. The city had an urban population of approximately 531,275 inhabitants in 2018.https://www.dane.gov.co/files/varios/informacion ...

. The department has a monument placed in the very geographic centre of Colombia, at a place known as Alto de Menegua, a few kilometers from Puerto López. Achagua, which is similar to Piapoco, is an

Indigenous language An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by indigenous peoples. This language is from a linguistically distinct community that originated in the area. Indigenous languages are not neces ...

spoken by a minority in the department.

Municipalities

References

External links

Folklore llanero

Government MetaTerritorial-Environmental Information System of Colombian Amazon SIAT-AC website
{{Authority control States and territories established in 1960 Departments of Colombia

Municipalities

See also

References

External links