Country Profile: Bolivia

Oct 27, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News – Bolivia, landlocked country of west-central South America. Extending some 950 miles (1,500 km) north-south and 800 miles (1,300 km) east-west, Bolivia is bordered to the north and east by Brazil, to the southeast by Paraguay, to the south by Argentina, to the southwest and west by Chile, and to the northwest by Peru. Bolivia shares Lake Titicaca, the second largest lake in South America (after Lake Maracaibo), with Peru.

The country has been landlocked since it lost its Pacific coast territory to Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879–84), but agreements with neighboring countries have granted it indirect access to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The constitutional capital is the historic city of Sucre, where the Supreme Court is established, but the administrative capital is La Paz, where the executive and legislative branches of government function.

Bolivia is traditionally regarded as a highland country. Although only one-third of its territory lies in the Andes Mountains, most of the nation’s largest cities are located there, and for centuries the highlands have attracted the nation’s largest amount of mining, commercial, and business investment. In the late 20th century, however, the demographic and economic landscape began to change as the eastern lowlands—particularly the department of Santa Cruz—developed rapidly.

The country has a rich history. It was once the center of the ancient Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) empire, and from the 15th to the early 16th century it was a part of the Inca empire. After the arrival of the conquistadores, Bolivia was subsumed within the Viceroyalty of Peru, and it provided Spain with immense wealth in silver.

Plant life

Huge expanses of the southern Altiplano are saline and barren, but ichu (a coarse bunchgrass) is common in the north, where it is grazed by llamas. Tola (a tough, wind-resistant shrub) and mosslike cushions of yareta, both widely used for fuel, are well distributed, along with cactus scrub. Totora reeds, which grow on the shores of Lake Titicaca, are used for thatching, feeding livestock, and making the Indian boats called balsas.

Native quishuara and khena trees can still be found on the Altiplano. Near Mount Sajama, at an elevation of 14,000 feet (4,300 meters), one of the highest forests of khena trees has survived. Eucalyptus and pine trees have been introduced around the shores of Lake Titicaca and in sheltered valleys. Large stretches of the Altiplano are planted in field crops.

Animal life

Bolivian highland animal life is distinguished by the presence of members of the camel family—the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña, all native to the Andes. The llama and alpaca are domesticated varieties of the wild guanaco, which survives in the mountains. The llama, the largest animal on the Altiplano and seldom seen below elevations of 7,500 feet (2,300 meters), is the traditional beast of burden and is also a source of meat, wool, leather, tallow, and fuel (in the form of dried dung) in rural Andean communities. It is also used for ancient Aymara and Quechua religious rites, in which it may be sacrificed in honor of Pachamama (Pacha Mama), goddess of the Earth.

The smaller alpaca is reared for its soft wool, although the wild, legally protected vicuña that is found in the southern and northern parts of the Altiplano produces an even silkier type of wool. Highland rodents include the chinchilla, the viscacha (a burrower), the mara (a long-legged, long-eared cavy), and the cui (a guinea pig bred for its meat and often kept as a pet).

The Andean condor, a New World vulture and the largest flying bird in the Americas, roosts and breeds at elevations between 10,000 and 16,000 feet (3,000 and 4,900 meters). Many smaller birds and waterfowl, including grebes, coots, cormorants, ducks, geese, and gulls, live around Lake Titicaca, and large flocks of flamingos appear during several months of the year on Titicaca’s shallow shores and farther south around Lake Poopó. Trout are found in several of the rivers on the Altiplano.

Demography

At the beginning of the 20th century the population of Bolivia was estimated at 1,800,000. After 25 years of slow growth thereafter it had increased to about 2,300,000. Between 1925 and 1950 the population grew at a slightly accelerated rate (despite the losses of the Chaco War), increasing by about 750,000. The population increased dramatically by at least 2,250,000 (to some 5,300,000) during the next 25 years as the death rate fell and the birth rate remained consistently high. During the last quarter of the 20th century the rate of population growth slowed somewhat but was still among the higher rates in Latin America.

Tourism

 

Tourism is playing an increasingly important role in the economy as Bolivia attracts larger numbers of foreign tourists. New or refurbished hotels opened in the cities of La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa Cruz, and Sucre, as well as in several sites around Lake Titicaca. Because of the country’s vast variety of natural and cultural resources, as well as its improved economic and political stability, Bolivia has been added to an increasingly popular grand tour of South America—a package tour of continental highlights that attracts visitors from the United States, Europe, Japan, and other countries.

Major Bolivian tourist sites are Lake Titicaca and its surroundings, including Inca ruins on the Island of the Sun and pre-Inca ruins at Tiwanaku; the latter were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000. Other tourist attractions include fishermen in totora-reed balsas (rafts), Indian villages on the Altiplano, and the city of La Paz itself.

 

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• Bolivia, Chile, country, landlocked, South America

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