Cartagena, officially Cartagena de Indias, city in northern Colombia, capital of Bolívar Department, a seaport on the Caribbean Sea. The city is on an island formed by a shallow extension of the harbor, one of the best in northern South America. Cartagena is connected by a causeway with the mainland. The older part of the city contains two old forts and is surrounded by a wall 12 m (40 ft) thick in places, constructed in Spanish colonial times. Among the notable buildings of the city are the cathedral, the Jesuit church of San Juan de Dios, and the palace that was the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition in South America. The site of the University of Cartagena (1827), Cartagena is also the terminus of an oil pipeline extending about 600 km (about 375 mi) into the interior of Colombia. The principal exports are oil and petroleum products and coffee. Other exports include tobacco, cattle and cattle products, fine woods, and precious stones. Chocolate and candles are among the products manufactured here. In the early 1990s tourism became increasingly important to the city's economy.
Founded in 1533 by the Spanish, the city rapidly became a thriving commercial port, later referred to as the Queen of the Indies. Pirates sacked the city in 1544. In the early 17th century the city was second to Mexico City in commercial importance in the New World. Nationalist revolutionists, led by Simón Bolívar, in 1815 took the city from the Spanish, lost it the same year, and recaptured it in 1821. Population (1997 estimate) 812,595.
