Aracataca is a town and municipality located in the Department of Magdalena, in Colombia's Caribbean Region. Aracataca is a river town founded in 1885. The town stands beside a small river of the same name, the Aracataca river, that flows from the nearby Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range into the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta, a lagoon of the Caribbean Sea. Aracataca is 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of the Department capital Santa Marta. The town is best known as the birthplace of Nobel literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez.