Why it looks like this

The Spanish founded Bogotá in 1538 with the standard checkerboard of the Laws of the Indies, and the modern city kept the logic: calles run one way, carreras the other, and an address like 'Calle 72 con Carrera 11' is a pair of coordinates.

The city sits on a high plain at about 2,640 m, pressed against the mountain wall of Monserrate and Guadalupe. With the east blocked, Bogotá stretched into a long north–south band — which is why the map looks like a grid pulled lengthwise along the mountains.