They live in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, departments of Cesar, La Guajira and Magdalena. They share the territory with part of the guards of the kogui and arhuaco.Algunos of its main settlements are located between the middle-high basin of the Ranchería river and the river Cesar and Badillo.
Its population reaches +/- 2000 people.

The social constitution of its present territory is related to the colonizing process and the expansion of the agricultural and livestock frontier that took power after the war of the thousand days. By the end of the nineteenth century, in addition to the colonizing impact that led to the beginning of the indigenous migrations, the establishment of missions and their system of orphanages and schools influenced in a decisive way the cultural dynamics of the wiwa.
More recently they were affected by the marijuana boom, whose consolidation produced a long process of social decomposition and violence in the region and also by the establishment of haciendas by colonists. Faced with this situation, many Indians fled, joined the shelter Koguio moved to the highlands. Once the period of marijuana cultivation was over, they began a process of return to their lands associated with the establishment of the Gonawindua-Tairona indigenous organization and the appointment of the first town hall.

Within its belief system, the ancestral territory of this group was located in the low and warm lands of the north face of the Sierra. They are considered descendants of the same mother of the kogui, but not of the mother of the ika.
In their settlements there are two types of constructions. One is the ceremonial house differentiated by sex, and another is the house that, unlike the kogui, has a rectangular shape. Around these constructions are the fields of cultivation.

Like the Kogi and the Arhuacos, the Wiwa are organized into patrilineal and matrilineal lineages according to sex.
The Mamo, the knower and transmitter of the Law of Origin, is the magico-religious specialist with the greatest importance in his social organization. Politically the authority falls into three figures: the governor, the commissary and the corporal. The latter has, among other functions, the care and maintenance of the ceremonial house of men. The 27 wiwa communities in the three departments mentioned above are grouped under the guidance of the Wiwa Yugumaiun Bunkuanarua Tairona -Owybt- organization.

As economic activities, they plant sweet potato, pineapple, squash, malanga, coffee, rice and chili, in addition to breeding pigs and pigs. Coffee is used as a cash crop. The sale of domestic animals, livestock and salaried work or newspaper, occupy an important line within its economy.