53.7 million people, and still growing

Colombia is home to about 53.7 million people in 2026, the second-largest population in South America after Brazil and about 28th in the world⁶. It is still growing. The UN’s medium projection reaches 59.4 million by 2050, close to its peak, which comes a year later⁶.

Colombia’s own statistics agency, DANE, sees a smaller and earlier top. Its projection peaks at about 56.0 million in 2043 and has the population already slightly smaller by 2050, at 55.7 million⁴. The two agree on today. They part ways on how quickly an ageing population will stop growing, and on how many more people will arrive.

Fewer births, and nearly 3 million newcomers from Venezuela

Colombian women now have about 1.6 children on average, well below the 2.1 needed to keep a population steady over time, and the median age is about 33⁶. The population is still rising partly because the large generations born in earlier decades are raising families now.

The other reason is next door. Since Venezuela’s economic collapse, millions of Venezuelans have crossed the border, and Colombia has taken in more than any other country. At the end of 2024 it hosted 2,843,594 refugees and migrants from Venezuela⁵, about one in every 19 people living in Colombia.

Most Colombians, newcomers included, live in towns and cities. About 78.5% of the population was urban in 2024¹⁰.

One of the most biodiverse countries on Earth

Colombia packs an astonishing amount of life into its territory: close to 10% of the planet’s biodiversity. It has more species of birds and orchids than any other country⁷.

Some of the most important places for people are also the least known. High in the Andes, above the tree line, lie the páramos, cold, wet highland grasslands that soak up rain and release it slowly into the rivers below. Colombia’s 37 páramos cover only about 2% of the country, yet they supply about 70% of its drinking water¹.

Bogotá, a city of almost 8 million people, gets about 70% of its tap water from just one of them, the páramo of Chingaza². And those highlands are fragile. The same study warns that future climate change could make conditions unsuitable for páramo ecosystems in Colombia², which could put the water supply of the country’s biggest city at risk. The loss of species in mountains like these feeds into the global species extinction rate.

Exporting coal, running on hydropower

Colombia’s economy leans heavily on fossil fuels it doesn’t burn itself. It is the world’s sixth-largest coal exporter, and more than 90% of the coal it mines is sold abroad⁸³. Fossil fuels made up about 45% of the country’s exports in 2024⁸. At home, though, hydroelectric dams supply about two-thirds of Colombia’s electricity⁸.

That split matters for how the country’s footprint looks. The carbon from exported coal is counted where it is burned, in other countries’ footprints, not in Colombia’s.

1.28 Earths, and land to spare

If everyone in the world lived like the average Colombian, humanity would need 1.28 Earths¹¹, more than the planet can renew. Carbon from fossil fuels makes up 0.49 Earths of that, and grazing land, mostly for cattle, another 0.44¹¹.

At home Colombia still has more than it uses. Its ecosystems renew about 3.14 global hectares per person, while each Colombian uses 1.92, which makes the country an ecological creditor¹¹.

Deforestation is down from its peak, but rising again

There has been real progress on Colombia’s forests. In 2025 Colombia lost 119,483 hectares of forest, 31% less than in 2021, when 174,103 hectares were cleared⁹.

It isn’t a clean turnaround. The 2025 figure was 5.2% higher than 2024’s 113,608 hectares⁹, so the trend is no longer only heading down. Whether Colombia can push it back down will decide how much of its forest, and the surplus that comes with it, is left by 2050. The global picture is in the rate of deforestation.

Where Colombia is heading

Colombia will probably have between 56 and 59 million people by 2050, and it is likely to stop growing around then, sooner on DANE’s figures than on the UN’s. How many Venezuelans stay, and how many more come, could shift that by millions.

A population that is close to its peak, mostly urban, and heavily dependent on a thin band of mountain wetlands for its water suggests Colombia’s biggest test may be keeping the páramos and forests intact while it does so.