Municipalities of Colombia

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.

[1] Conforming to the law 1551/12 that modified the sixth article of the law 136/94 [2] the municipalities have the categories listed below: The Department of Amazonas is formed by 2 municipalities which are Leticia and Puerto Nariño; and by "department corregimientos" which is a 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.