Colombia

Colombia's entries turn on altitude and on recovery. Bogotá sits at 2,640 metres in a temperate valley where the Spanish put their administration because Europeans could breathe there. Cartagena was sacked so often that the crown spent two centuries walling it, producing the most complete colonial fortifications in the Americas. Medellín answered the world's highest murder rate with cable cars and library parks, and the rate fell by over ninety per cent.