Update Log
New actors and disaggregated city locations in ACLED's Colombia dataset
ACLED introduces new actors and disaggregated locations of cities in Colombia, as part of an ongoing expansion project to include coverage of gang violence in Colombia.
On 27 July 2026, ACLED introduced two changes in coding practices for Colombia as part of an ongoing expansion project to include organized criminal violence in the country’s dataset.
Data on organized criminal violence are currently not yet included in ACLED’s Colombia dataset – further updates will follow when this project is published at a forthcoming date.
Key changes
- Introduces a new actor, “Unidentified Non-State Armed Group and/or Unidentified Gang”: These more specific actor categories better capture events involving non-state armed groups and gangs, supplementing the more general "Unidentified Armed Group" designation.
- Enhances neighborhood-level location coding: ACLED now disaggregates event locations in Barranquilla, Medellín, Cúcuta, and Santiago de Cali to the sub-city level. Bogotá was already disaggregated to the neighborhood level in all prior data. For example, Barranquilla city is now divided into five administrative subdivisions called “localidades” (localities). These will appear in the data as “Barranquilla - Suroriente,” “Barranquilla - Suroccidente,” “Barranquilla - Metropolitana,” “Barranquilla - Norte Centro Historico,” and “Barranquilla - Riomar.”
Data prior to 26 June 2026 retains the previous actor labels. Medellín, Cúcuta, and Santiago de Cali disaggregated locations are now available for data from 1 January 2018 to present. Barranquilla is divided into subdivisions from 1 January 2026 to present.
Implications for analysis
- The introduction of new actor categories does not affect the total number of events in the dataset; it reflects a more specific attribution of certain events previously recorded under "Unidentified Armed Group."
- Users will observe an increase in events recorded in Barranquilla from January 2026. This increase reflects the disaggregation of events from city-level to neighborhood-level locations, and does not necessarily represent any change in the underlying level of violence.
