and bounded N. by the Caribbean Sea and Venezuela, E. by
Venezuela and Brazil, S. by Brazil, Peru and Ecuador, and W. by Ecuador,
the Pacific Ocean, Panama and the Caribbean Sea. The republic is very
irregular in outline and has an extreme length from north to south of
1050 m., exclusive of territory occupied by Peru on the north bank of
the upper Amazon, and an extreme width of 860 m. The approximate area of
this territory, according to official calculations, is 481,979 sq. m.,
which is reduced to 465,733 sq. m. by Gotha planimetrical measurements.
This makes Colombia fourth in area among the South American states.

The loss of the department of Panama left the republic with unsettled
frontiers on every side, and some of the boundary disputes still
unsolved in 1909 concern immense areas of territory. The boundary with
Costa Rica was settled in 1900 by an award of the President of France,
but the secession of Panama in 1903 gave Colombia another unsettled line
on the north-west. If the line which formerly separated the Colombian
departments of Cauca and Panama is taken as forming the international
boundary, this line follows the water-parting between the streams which
flow eastward to the Atrato, and those which flow westward to the Gulf
of San Miguel, the terminal points being near Cape Tiburon on the
Caribbean coast, and at about 7 deg. 10' N. lat. on the Pacific coast.
The boundary dispute with Venezuela was referred in 1883 to the king of
Spain, and the award was made in 1891. Venezuela, however, refused to
accept the decision. The line decided upon, and accepted by Colombia,
starts from the north shore of Calabozo Bay on the west side of the Gulf
of Maracaibo, and runs west and south-west to and along the
water-parting (Sierra de Perija) between the drainage basins of the
Magdalena and Lake Maracaibo as far as the source in lat. 8 deg. 50' N.
of a small branch of the Catatumbo river, thence in a south-easterly
direction across the Catatumbo and Zulia rivers to a point in 72 deg.
30' W. long., 8 deg. 12' N. lat., thence in an irregular southerly
direction across the Cordillera de Merida to the source of the Sarare,
whence it runs eastward along that river, the Arauca, and the Meta to
the Orinoco. Thence the line runs south and south-east along the
Orinoco, Atabapo and Guainia to the Pedra de Cucuhy, which serves as a
boundary mark for three republics. Of the eastern part of the territory
lying between the Meta and t