10 07 29 Master thesis Juliana Leon - e-Waste. This guide

1.2 Colombia as case study
The Republic of Colombia is the fourth-largest and second-most populated country in
South America with 45.5 millions inhabitants. Bogotá, the capital and largest city,
contains close to 9 million people. Figure 1 shows the locations of the five most
important agglomerations in the country.
Barranquilla
Figure 1: Map of topography and location of Colombian major cities (Source:
ochaonline.un.org). These five agglomerations concentrate 40% of inhabitants (DANE, 2005)
and more than 90% of computers (Ott, 2008).
Table 1 presents some general and economic indicators about the country. Colombia
is a lower-middle-income country, placed on 110 th position according to its Gross
Domestic Product based on purchasing-power-poverty (GDP ppp) per capita for
2009 (CIA Factbook, 2010). The industrial sector contributes about 38.2% to the
GDP, while agriculture and services contribute about 9.1% and 52.8% respectively.
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