The municipalities of Colombia are decentralized subdivisions of the Republic of Colombia. Municipalities make up most of the departments of Colombia, with 1,104 municipalities (municipios). Each one of them is led by a mayor (alcalde) elected by popular vote and represents the maximum executive government official at a municipality level under the mandate of the governor of their department which is a representative of all municipalities in the department; municipalities are grouped to form departments.
The municipalities of Colombia are also grouped in an association called the Federación Colombiana de Municipios (Colombian Federation of Municipalities), which functions as a union under the private law and under the constitutional right to free association to defend their common interests.
Conforming to the law 1551/12 that modified the sixth article of the law 136/94 the municipalities have the categories listed below:
Amazonas Department is composed of two municipalities, Leticia and Puerto Nariño, and by department corregimientos, which have special combined functions between a presidential power and a corregimiento. The reason for this classification is that the large territory is mostly inhospitable, inhabited only by indigenous peoples, and within the Amazon rainforest.
Bogotá is divided into localities ():
Municipalities