Bolivia

Bolivia is a country in South America.

It has no sea. In the west are tall, snowy mountains. In the east are warm forests and plains.

Bolivia lies in the middle of South America and has no coastline. In the west rise the Andes Mountains, with a high, flat plateau called the Altiplano between two great ranges. In the east, the land drops to warm, low plains and forests that cover more than two-thirds of the country.

Bolivia has two capitals: the president and lawmakers meet in La Paz, and the national courts are in Sucre. About 12.6 million people lived in Bolivia in 2025. Spanish and 36 Indigenous languages are official, and Quechua and Aymara are the two biggest Indigenous languages.

Bolivia is traditionally seen as a highland country: although only one-third of its territory lies in the Andes, most of its largest cities are there, and for centuries the highlands drew most mining and business investment. From the late 20th century the eastern lowlands, especially Santa Cruz department, grew rapidly. The Oriente, an extension of the Amazon basin, covers more than two-thirds of the land.

The executive and legislature meet in La Paz and the judiciary in Sucre, the constitutional capital. The 2009 constitution made the country the Plurinational State of Bolivia and recognized Spanish and 36 Indigenous languages as official; before that, only Spanish, Aymara and Quechua were. The World Bank put the population at 12,581,843 in 2025. Britannica notes that Bolivia remains one of the poorest countries in South America despite rich mineral, gas and farm resources.

La Paz is a city in a deep valley.

Houses climb up the steep sides. Potosí is a very high city. Long ago, people dug silver from its mountain.

La Paz, founded by the Spanish in 1548, fills a huge canyon cut into the edge of the Altiplano, with houses climbing up its steep sides. On the plateau above it, El Alto grew into one of the fastest-growing cities in the Western Hemisphere. Santa Cruz, in the eastern lowlands, is now the largest city.

Potosí, founded in 1545 beside a mountain full of silver, is over 4,000 meters high. In the mid-1600s it was the biggest city in the Americas. Sucre, one of the "garden cities" of the valleys, holds the National Archives. Near Lake Titicaca are the stone ruins of Tiwanaku, once the capital of a powerful empire.

La Paz lies in a sheltered canyon below the Altiplano, chosen by the Spanish in 1548 on the silver route to the Pacific; industrial and lower-income districts climb the valley sides, while El Alto, on the plateau above, grew from 307,400 people in 1989 to more than half a million by the mid-1990s. Santa Cruz de la Sierra, long isolated in the Oriente, overtook Cochabamba in the 1970s and later La Paz.

Potosí, founded in 1545 at the foot of Cerro Rico, had about 150,000 inhabitants in the mid-17th century and was the largest city in the Americas; UNESCO (1987) calls it the world's largest industrial complex of the 16th century, with 22 reservoirs powering 140 ore-grinding mills and the Royal Mint, rebuilt in 1759. Sucre, founded as Chuquisaca in 1538, was the seat of the colonial Audiencia of Charcas. Tiwanaku, capital of a pre-Hispanic empire that peaked between 500 and 900 CE, includes the stepped Akapana pyramid, once over 18 m high, and the Gate of the Sun, cut from a single slab of andesite.

Bolivia has very high mountains.

The tallest is called Sajama. Lake Titicaca is high in the mountains. The Uyuni Salt Flat is white and flat like a giant floor.

Two great ranges of the Andes run through western Bolivia. Between them lies the Altiplano, a high plateau about 800 kilometers long, at 3,650 to 3,800 meters above sea level. Cold winds sweep across it all year. Bolivia's highest peak, Mount Sajama, reaches 6,542 meters, and the western range also holds active volcanoes and the dazzling Uyuni Salt Flat.

Lake Titicaca, shared with Peru, lies 3,810 meters above sea level and is the world's highest lake that big ships can sail on. East of the mountains, the land plunges through the rainy, forested Yungas to hot lowland plains, swamps, savannas and, in the far north, Amazon rainforest.

The Andes reach their greatest breadth in Bolivia. The Cordillera Occidental along the Chilean border holds active volcanoes, the Uyuni Salt Flat and Mount Sajama (6,542 m); the Cordillera Oriental includes the Cordillera Real near La Paz, with peaks above 6,100 m. Between them, the Altiplano is a flat-floored depression about 800 by 130 km at 3,650 to 3,800 m, with the Titicaca and Poopó basins. Lake Titicaca, at 3,810 m and about 8,300 km², is the world's highest lake navigable to large vessels; only 5 percent of its excess water leaves by the Desaguadero River, and the rest evaporates.

Eastward the Yungas descend steeply through mountain rainforest; to the south the Valles hold the 'garden cities' of Cochabamba, Sucre and Tarija. The Oriente's plains, swamps, savannas and forests give way in the far south to the Chaco, a swamp in the rainy season and a hot semidesert the rest of the year. Rain falls mostly from December to March in the highlands; huge lithium reserves lie beneath the Uyuni Salt Flat.

Llamas and alpacas live in the high mountains.

Condors live high in the mountains. In the warm forests live jaguars, sloths and toucans. Flamingos visit the lakes.

In the high Andes live four members of the camel family: the llama, the alpaca, the wild guanaco and the wild vicuña. People use llamas to carry loads and for wool and meat, and alpacas for their soft wool. The Andean condor, the largest flying bird in the Americas, nests high in the mountains, and flocks of flamingos visit the lakes for several months a year.

The warm lowlands hold armadillos, anteaters, capybaras and pumas, and in the northern forests live jaguars, sloths, tapirs, monkeys, caimans, piranhas, parrots and toucans. Madidi National Park alone has 1,000 or more kinds of birds.

Britannica describes highland fauna marked by four South American camelids: the domesticated llama and alpaca, descended from the wild guanaco, and the legally protected vicuña, whose wool is silkier still. The llama, the largest animal on the Altiplano, is a beast of burden and a source of meat, wool, leather and fuel. Highland rodents include the chinchilla and viscacha, and the Andean condor, the largest flying bird in the Americas, roosts and breeds at 3,000 to 4,900 m. Grebes, coots, ducks and gulls live around Lake Titicaca, and flamingos arrive in large flocks for several months.

The Oriente has armadillos, anteaters, peccaries, pumas, marsh deer, capybaras and rheas; the northern forests jaguars, sloths, tapirs, monkeys, caimans and piranhas, with venomous snakes such as the bushmaster. Noel Kempff Mercado National Park has more than 500 bird species and Madidi National Park, established in 1995, 1,000 or more. Cattle ranching and logging, much of it illegal, put growing strain on forests in the Yungas and Oriente.

About 12.6 million people live in Bolivia.

Many people speak Spanish. Many speak Quechua or Aymara too. Football is the favorite sport.

Most people in Bolivia are mestizos, with both Indigenous and European ancestors, and about one in five are Indigenous. The largest Indigenous groups are the Aymara, who live mainly on the northern Altiplano, the Quechua, and the Guaraní in the southern lowlands. In 2006 Evo Morales, an Aymara, became the first Indigenous president.

More than two-thirds of Bolivians live in towns and cities. Football is by far the most popular sport, and at Carnival in Oruro, music and dance groups compete in brilliant costumes. Markets sell colorful handicrafts, wood carvings and silver jewelry.

Britannica estimates that mestizos make up more than two-thirds of the population, Indigenous people about one-fifth and people of European descent about one-twentieth, though centuries of intermixing make proportions hard to measure. The Aymara live mainly on the northern and central Altiplano, the Quechua on the southern Altiplano and in the valleys of Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Potosí, and Guaraní-speaking communities in the southeastern lowlands. Immigrants include Mennonites, and Japanese and Okinawan farmers in Santa Cruz since 1899. More than three-fourths of people are Roman Catholic.

Daily life varies by class and region: Indigenous traditions are strongest in rural and working-class areas, and lowland social life runs later than in the chilly highlands. The Oruro Carnival is the most important folk festival, and La Paz holds the Gran Poder festival in May. Soccer dominates sport; the national team was runner-up in the 1997 Copa América. More than two-thirds of people were urban by the early 21st century.