Municipalities of Colombia

The municipalities of Colombia are decentralized subdivisions of the Republic of Colombia. Municipalities make up most of the departments of Colombia with 1,122 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.^[1]