page_title: Indigenous peoples of the Americas
section_title: Colombia
hierarchical_section_title: Indigenous peoples of the Americas / History and status by continent and country / South America / Colombia
caption_attribution_description: Español: Resguardo indígena de Guambía en Colombia
context_page_description: The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian peoples of North, Central and South America and their descendants.
  Although some indigenous peoples of the Americas were traditionally hunter-gatherers—and many, especially in the Amazon basin, still are—many groups practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas. Although some societies depended heavily on agriculture, others practiced a mix of farming, hunting and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms and empires. Among these are the Aztec, Inca and Maya states that until the 16th century were among the most politically and socially advanced nations in the world. They had a vast knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, sculpture and goldsmithing.
context_section_description: A minority today within Colombia's overwhelmingly Mestizo and White Colombian population, Colombia's indigenous peoples consist of around 85 distinct cultures and more than 1,378,884 people. A variety of collective rights for indigenous peoples are recognized in the 1991 Constitution.
  One of the influences is the Muisca culture, a subset of the larger Chibcha ethnic group, famous for their use of gold, which led to the legend of El Dorado. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Muisca were the largest native civilization geographically between the Incas and the Aztecs empires.
caption: Guambía people relaxing in Colombia
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