Editing Economy of Colombia (section)

=== 16th–19th centuries ===
European explorers reached what is now Colombian territory as early as 1510 in Santa María Antigua del Darién (in present-day Chocó department). For the next couple of decades Colombia, and South America in general, remained largely unexplored. From 1533 to 1600, Europeans began expeditions into the interior of current Colombia. The in of these expeditions was mainly to conquer new lands and exploit village resources. Legends of El Dorado that reached Spaniard explorers continued to fuel exploration and raiding of Indian villages.

In the 17th century, Spanish conquerors explored Colombia and made the first settlements, and this was the beginning of Colombia's modern economic history. Major conquistadors from this period were [[Pedro de Heredia]], [[Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada|Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada]], [[Sebastián de Belalcázar|Sebastián de Belalcazar]], and [[Nikolaus Federmann]].

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the colonial settlements in Colombia served purposes of extraction of precious metals and other natural resources, and later slavery trade. This economic arrangement left the Colony with little room for building solid institutionality for economic development. The main non-extractive institutions emerging in this centuries were the fortified port of Cartagena and the Viceroyalty of New Granada. Cartagena developed military defenses mainly out of necessity from frequently having to deal with pirate attacks. A primitive form of colonial administration was organized in Santa fé de Bogotá with the Viceroyalty of New Granada, especially under the tenure of [[José Solís Folch de Cardona]] (1753–1761), who conducted a census and built roads, bridges and aqueducts.

Following the [[Thousand Days' War]] (1899–1902), Colombia experienced a coffee boom that catapulted the country into the modern period, bringing the attendant benefits of transportation, particularly railroads, communications infrastructure, and the first major attempts at manufacturing.