UV Index 🇨🇴Colombia

Colombia straddles the equator at the northwestern corner of South America, extending from about 4°13′S on the Amazon border to 13°23′N on the Guajira Peninsula, and is the only South American country with coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. With nearly all of its territory inside the tropics, the sun passes close to the zenith year-round and day length barely changes between seasons. This equatorial geometry, combined with abundant high-altitude terrain, produces one of the broadest and most intense ambient ultraviolet regimes on the continent.

Colombia's defining UV feature is altitude on the equator: the capital Bogotá sits at 2,640 m on the Cordillera Oriental, and peer-reviewed measurements over the tropical Andes routinely record clear-sky noon UV index values of 11–14, well into the WHO 'extreme' band. Three parallel Andean cordilleras rise to snow-capped volcanoes above 5,000 m, including Nevado del Huila and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, while the hot, humid Caribbean coast and the Amazon basin to the southeast complete a sharp climatic contrast. IDEAM, the national meteorological service, issues daily UV index forecasts for the country.

Colombia sits at #26 of 191 in the WHO's global ambient-UV ranking with about 5,385 J/m² of average daily UV, around the 87th percentile worldwide.