Education is free and compulsory for five years in Colombia. Illiteracy is declining, having dropped from an estimated 90% at the end of the 19th century to an estimated 8.2% in 2000 (males, 8.2%; females, 8.2%).
As per the latest data available, the Colombia population has gone up to around 44.3 million people. It now stands in the 26th position in the list of highly populated nations around the world. With this it has also become the third highly populated nation in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico. 75% of the total population of Colombia is found to reside in urban areas.
Bogotá, Distrito Capital, from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital city of Colombia.