Colombia departments quiz

The 33 departments in the quiz

Colombia has 32 departments and the Capital District of Bogotá: 33 in the quiz. Use the Capitals button in the panel to find their capitals instead.

How to play

In Point mode we name a department and you tap it on the map; in Type mode one lights up and you type its name (accents don’t matter); and in Time trial you get 6 seconds per question. If you miss, we show you where it was, which way it lies and a hint drawn from the data: its size rank and its neighbors.

Each game has 10, 20 or all the questions, and at the end you can practice just the ones you missed. Your best score for each mode is saved in this browser only: neither we nor anyone else can see it, and there’s no sign-up.

The hardest ones

The smallest departments are the hardest, since they barely show on the map: San Andrés y Providencia (about 15 sq mi), Bogotá (about 650 sq mi), and Quindío (about 730 sq mi). Zoom in with the buttons or two fingers to tap them.

And watch out for look-alike names: Cauca and Valle del Cauca; Norte de Santander and Santander.

Tips to learn them

• Start with the three largest: Amazonas, Vichada, and Caquetá cover 26% of the area of Colombia.
• The 7 departments bordering Venezuela trace that border on the map: Arauca, Boyacá, Cesar, Guainía, La Guajira, Norte de Santander, and Vichada.
• Only 12 of the 33 departments have a coastline: find them first along the edge of the map.
• San Andrés y Providencia has no land border with any other department on the map: look for it at sea.

Playing in class

If you teach in Colombia, start with your school’s department and its neighbors and add a few each day. Otherwise, it’s a good way to get to know the country before studying it.

With the Challenge your class link, everyone gets the same questions in the same order, with no accounts or passwords, and each student sees their own score, time and streak. To practice on paper, there’s a printable worksheet of the same map with an answer key.

List of all 33 departments

1. Amazonas Leticia
2. Antioquia Medellin
3. Arauca Arauca
4. Atlántico Barranquilla
5. Bogotá Bogotá
6. Bolívar Cartagena
7. Boyacá Tunja
8. Caldas Manizales
9. Caquetá Florencia
10. Casanare Yopal
11. Cauca Popayán
12. Cesar Valledupar
13. Chocó Quibdó
14. Córdoba Montería
15. Cundinamarca Bogotá
16. Guainía Inírida
17. Guaviare San José del Guaviare
18. Huila Neiva
19. La Guajira Riohacha
20. Magdalena Santa Marta
21. Meta Villavicencio
22. Nariño San Juan de Pasto
23. Norte de Santander Cúcuta
24. Putumayo Mocoa
25. Quindío Armenia
26. Risaralda Pereira
27. San Andrés y Providencia San Andrés
28. Santander Bucaramanga
29. Sucre Sincelejo
30. Tolima Ibagué
31. Valle del Cauca Cali
32. Vaupés Mitú
33. Vichada Puerto Carreño