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Chocó is a department of Colombia known for its large Afro-Colombian population. It is situated in the west of the country, and is the only Colombian department to have coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean sea. It also contains all of Colombia's border with Panama. Its capital is Quibdó.
Despite being rich in natural resources, an incredibly diverse geography, and having one of the richest biodiversities on the planet, Chocó has has one of the lowest living standards in Colombia. Death by starvation has been known to happen, even in recent times. The area is also the world's rainiest lowland, with close to 400 inches of annual precipitation, yet Chocó's capital Quibdó has run out of water at times due to its bad infrastructure.
The municipality of Lloró holds the highest average annual precipitation record which measures around 523.6 inches (13,300 mm) per year, making it the wettest place in the world. Three large rivers drain the Chocó Department, the Atrato River, the San Juan River and the Baudó River, each one with many tributaries. The Baudó Mountains on the coast and the Cordillera Occidental are cut by low valleys with an altitude less than 1,000 meters that form most of the territory. Most of the Chocó is thick rain forest. Much of Colombia's internal consumption of wood comes from the Chocó, as well as a small percentage for export.
Chocó is inhabited predominantly by descendants of African slaves brought by the Spanish colonizers after conquering the Americas. The second prominent race/ethnic group are the remnants of Native American people known as the Emberá with more than half of their total population in Colombia living in Chocó, some 35,500. They survive by practicing hunting and artisan fishing and live by rivers.
Quibdó is the largest city. Other important cities and towns include Istmina, Condoto, Nóvita, and El Carmen in the interior, Acandí on the Caribbean coast, and Solano on the Pacific coast. Resorts include Capurgana on the Caribbean coast, and Jurado, Nuquí, and Bahía Solano on the west coast.
The Chocó Department makes up most of the ecoregion known as El Chocó that extends from Panama to Ecuador. This ecoregion is part of a large biodiverse hotspot called Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena which includes the tropical moist forests and tropical dry forests of the Pacific coast of South America and also the Galapagos Islands. This region extends from easternmost Panama to the lower Magdalena Valley of Colombia, and along the Pacific coast of Colombia and Ecuador to the northwestern corner of Peru. It is bounded on the east by the Andes Mountains.
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