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Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. Its geography primarily consists of an Andean region to the west and tropical lowlands to the east and north. The country has a diverse environment, including the vast Amazonian plain, the Gran Chaco, temperate valleys, the high-altitude Altiplano plateau, snow-capped peaks, and mountains, encompassing a wide range of climates and biomes across its regions and cities. It includes part of the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, along its eastern border. Bolivia is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west. The seat of government is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. While most population and urban centers lie in the Andean region, the largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located in the eastern tropical lowlands.
Bolivia is a constitutionally unitary state divided into nine departments. Its geographic Andean-lowland divide is matched by economic and cultural differences such as those associated with the camba and colla demonyms. One-third of the country is within the Andean mountain range. With an area of 1,098,581 square kilometers (424,164 sq mi), Bolivia is the fifth-largest country in South America and, alongside Paraguay, is one of two landlocked countries in the Americas. It is the largest landlocked country in the Southern Hemisphere; it has inland ports accessing the Atlantic Ocean through two river systems: Acre-Purus-Amazon and Paraguay-Paraná. Bolivia had a population of 11.4 million as of the latest census in 2024. It is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Mestizos, and the descendants of Europeans and Africans. Spanish is the official and predominant language, although 36 indigenous languages also have official status, of which the most commonly spoken are Guaraní, Aymara, and Quechua.
Centuries prior to Spanish colonization, the region formed part of the Tiwanaku polity, which collapsed around 1000 AD. The Colla–Inca War of the 1440s marked the beginning of Inca rule in western Bolivia. The eastern and northern lowlands were inhabited by independent non-Andean Amazonian and Guaraní tribes. Spanish conquistadores arriving from Cusco, Peru and Asunción, Paraguay, forcibly took control of the region in the 16th century.
During the subsequent Spanish colonial period, Bolivia was administered by the Real Audiencia of Charcas. Spain built a large part of its global empire upon the massive silver reserves from Cerro Rico in Potosí. Following an unsuccessful rebellion in Sucre on May 25, 1809, sixteen years of fighting would follow before the establishment of the republic, named for Simón Bolívar. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Bolivia lost control of several peripheral territories to neighboring countries, such as the Acre territory after Brazil's 1899–1903 takeover, and the Pacific coastal region which Chile seized in 1879.
Bolivia was ruled by an oligarchy composed of land-owning and mining interests, in which the people who were apart of the oligarchy were Simón Iturri Patiño, Moritz Hochschild, and Carlos Víctor Aramayo, until the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952 established universal suffrage, nationalized lucrative tin mining and made a limited land reform. There was a succession of military and civilian governments with the last non-elected military ruler leaving office in 1982.
Modern Bolivia is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Organization of American States (OAS), Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), Bank of the South, the Union of South American Nations (USAN), and Southern Common Market (Mercosur). Bolivia remains a developing country, the second-poorest in South America, though it has slashed poverty rates. Its main economic resources include agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and goods such as textiles and clothing, refined metals, and refined petroleum. Bolivia is very geologically rich, with mines producing tin, lithium, silver, and copper. It is known for its production of coca plants and refined cocaine. In 2021, estimated coca cultivation and cocaine production was reported to be 39,700 hectares and 317 metric tons, respectively.
Bolivia is named after Simón Bolívar, a Venezuelan leader in the Spanish American wars of independence. The leader of Venezuela, Antonio José de Sucre, had been given the option by Bolívar to either unify Charcas (present-day Bolivia) with the newly formed Republic of Peru, to unify with the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, or to formally declare its independence from Spain as a wholly independent state. Sucre opted to create a new state and on 6 August 1825, with local support, named it in honor of Bolívar.
The original name was "Republic of Bolívar". Some days later, Congressman Manuel Martín Cruz proposed: "If from Romulus, Rome, then from Bolívar, Bolivia" (Spanish: Si de Rómulo, Roma; de Bolívar, Bolivia). The name was approved on 3 October 1825. In 2009, a new constitution changed the official name to "Plurinational State of Bolivia" to reflect the multi-ethnic nature of the country and the strengthened rights of Bolivia's indigenous peoples under the new constitution.
The region had been occupied for over 2,500 years when the Aymara arrived; however, present-day Aymara associate themselves with the ancient civilization of the Tiwanaku polity, which had its capital at Tiwanaku in western Bolivia. Tiwanaku dates back as early as 1500 BC, when it was a small, agriculturally-based village.
The Aymara community grew to urban proportions between AD 600 and 800, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes from La Paz. According to early estimates, the city covered approximately 6.5 square kilometers (2.5 square miles) at its peak and had between 15,000 and 30,000 inhabitants. However, in 1996, satellite imaging was used to map the extent of preserved suka kollus (flooded raised fields) across the three primary valleys of Tiwanaku, with the results suggesting a population-carrying capacity of anywhere between 285,000 and 1,482,000 people.
Around AD 400, Tiwanaku went from being a locally-dominant force to a 'predatory' state, aggressively expanding its reach into the Yungas and bringing its culture and ways to new peoples in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. Nonetheless, Tiwanaku was not a violent or domineering culture; to expand its reach, the state exercised great political astuteness, created colonies, fostered local trade agreements (which made other cultures rather dependent), and instituted state cults.
As rainfall gradually decreased, the stores of food supplies decreased, and thus the elites lost power. Tiwanaku disappeared around AD 1000. The area remained uninhabited for centuries thereafter. Between 1438 and 1527, the Inca Empire expanded from its capital at Cusco, gaining control over much of northern Andes and extending its control into the fringes of the Amazon basin.
The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire began in 1524 and was mostly completed by 1533. The territory now called Bolivia was known as Charcas, and was under the authority of Spain. Local government came from the Audiencia de Charcas located in Chuquisaca (La Plata—modern Sucre). Founded in 1545 as a mining town, Potosí produced fabulous wealth, becoming the largest city in the New World with a population exceeding 150,000 people.
By the late 16th century, silver from the region was an important source of revenue for the Spanish Empire. A steady stream of natives served as labor force under the brutal, slave conditions of the Spanish version of the pre-Columbian draft system called the mita. Charcas was transferred to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776, and the people from its capital at Buenos Aires coined the term "Upper Peru" (Spanish: Alto Peru) as a popular reference to the Royal Audiencia of Charcas. Túpac Katari led the indigenous rebellion that laid siege to La Paz in March 1781, during which 20,000 people died. As Spanish royal authority weakened during the Napoleonic Wars, sentiment against colonial rule grew.
The struggle for independence started in Chuquisaca (present-day Sucre) on 25 May 1809, known as the first cry of freedom in Latin America, which was followed by the La Paz revolution on 16 July 1809. The La Paz revolution marked a complete split with the Spanish government, while the Chuquisaca Revolution established a local independent junta in the name of the Spanish king deposed by Napoleon Bonaparte. Both revolutions were short-lived and defeated by the Spanish authorities in the Viceroyalty of the Rio de La Plata, but the following year the Spanish American wars of independence raged across the continent.
Bolivia was captured and recaptured many times during the war by the royalists and patriots. Buenos Aires sent three military campaigns, all of which were defeated, and eventually limited itself to protecting the national borders at Salta. Bolivia was finally freed of royalist dominion by Marshal Antonio José de Sucre, with a military campaign coming from the north in support of the campaign of Simón Bolívar. After 16 years of war the republic was declared independent on 6 August 1825.
In 1836 under the rule of Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz, Bolivia invaded Peru to reinstall the deposed president, General Luis José de Orbegoso. The Peru–Bolivian Confederation was formed with de Santa Cruz as the Supreme Protector. Chile and Argentina successively declared war, setting off the War of the Confederation. The Chilean army and its Peruvian rebel allies surrendered unconditionally and signed the Paucarpata Treaty, which stipulated that Chile would withdraw from Peru–Bolivia, Chile would return captured confederate ships, economic relations would be normalized, and the confederation would pay Peruvian debt to Chile. However, the Chilean government and public rejected the peace treaty. Chile organized a second attack on the confederation and defeated it in the Battle of Yungay. After this defeat, Santa Cruz resigned and went to exile in Ecuador and then Paris, and the confederation was dissolved.
Following the renewed independence of Peru, President Agustín Gamarra invaded Boliviain the Peruvian–Bolivian War. On 18 November 1841, the Bolivian Army defeated the Peruvian troops, and Gamarra was killed in battle. After the victory, Bolivia invaded Peru on several fronts. The eviction of the Bolivian troops from the south of Peru would be achieved by the greater availability of material and human resources of Peru; the Bolivian army did not have enough troops to maintain an occupation. In the district of Locumba–Tacna, a column of Peruvian soldiers and peasants defeated a Bolivian regiment in the Battle of Los Altos de Chipe (Locumba). In the district of Sama and in Arica, the Peruvian colonel José María Lavayén organized a troop that managed to defeat the Bolivian forces of Colonel Rodríguez Magariños and threaten the port of Arica. In the battle of Tarapacá on 7 January 1842, Peruvian militias formed by the commander Juan Buendía defeated a detachment led by Bolivian colonel José María García, who died in the confrontation. Bolivian troops left Tacna, Arica and Tarapacá in February 1842, retreating towards Moquegua and Puno. The battles of Motoni and Orurillo forced the withdrawal of Bolivian forces occupying Peruvian territory and exposed Bolivia to the threat of counter-invasion. The Treaty of Puno was signed on 7 June 1842, ending the war. However, the climate of tension between Lima and La Paz would continue until 1847, when the signing of a Peace and Trade Treaty became effective.
A period of political and economic instability in the early-to-mid-19th century weakened Bolivia. In addition, during the War of the Pacific (1879–84), Chile occupied vast territories rich in natural resources southwest of Bolivia, including the Bolivian coast. Chile took control of today's Chuquicamata area, the adjoining rich salitre (saltpeter) fields, and the port of Antofagasta among other Bolivian territories.
Since independence, Bolivia has lost over half of its territory to neighboring countries. Through diplomatic channels in 1909, it lost the basin of the Madre de Dios River and the territory of the Purus River in the Amazon, yielding 250,000 km2 to Peru. It also lost the state of Acre in the Acre War, important because the region was known for its production of rubber. Peasants and the Bolivian army fought briefly, but after a few victories and facing the prospect of a total war against Brazil, it was forced to sign the Treaty of Petrópolis in 1903, in which Bolivia lost the territory. Popular myth has it that President Mariano Melgarejo traded the land for what he called "a magnificent white horse," and Acre was subsequently flooded with Brazilians, which ultimately led to confrontation and fear of war with Brazil.
In the late 19th century, an increase in the world price of silver brought Bolivia relative prosperity and political stability. During the early 20th century, tin replaced silver as the country's most important source of wealth. A succession of governments controlled by the economic and social elite followed laissez-faire capitalist policies through the first 30 years of the 20th century.
Living conditions of the native people, who constitute most of the population, remained deplorable. With work opportunities limited to primitive conditions in the mines and in large estates having nearly feudal status, they had no access to education, economic opportunity, and political participation. Bolivia's defeat by Paraguay in the Chaco War (1932–1935), where Bolivia lost a great part of the Gran Chaco region in dispute, marked a turning point.
The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) emerged as a broad-based party. Denied its victory in the 1951 presidential elections, the MNR led a successful revolution in 1952. Under President Víctor Paz Estenssoro, the MNR, having strong popular pressure, introduced universal suffrage into his political platform and carried out a sweeping land-reform promoting rural education and nationalization of the largest tin mines.
Twelve years of tumultuous rule left the MNR divided. In 1964, a military junta overthrew Paz Estenssoro at the outset of his third term. The 1969 death of President René Barrientos, a former member of the junta who was elected president in 1966, led to a succession of weak governments. Alarmed by the rising Popular Assembly and the increase in the popularity of President Juan José Torres, the military, the MNR, and others installed Hugo Banzer as president in 1971. He returned to the presidency in 1997 through 2001. Torres, who had fled Bolivia, was kidnapped and assassinated in 1976 as part of Operation Condor, the U.S.-supported campaign of political repression by South American right-wing dictators.
The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) financed and trained the Bolivian military dictatorship in the 1960s. The revolutionary leader Che Guevara was killed by a team of CIA officers and members of the Bolivian Army on 9 October 1967, in Bolivia. Félix Rodríguez was a CIA officer on the team with the Bolivian army that captured and shot Guevara. Rodriguez said that after he received a Bolivian presidential execution order, he told "the soldier who pulled the trigger to aim carefully, to remain consistent with the Bolivian government's story that Che had been killed in action during a clash with the Bolivian army." Rodriguez said the US government had wanted Che in Panama, and "I could have tried to falsify the command to the troops, and got Che to Panama as the US government said they had wanted", but that he had chosen to "let history run its course" as desired by Bolivia.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Bolivia”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.