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Travel to Bolivia — Unbiased reviews and
great deals from TripAdvisorBolivia
| Republic of Bolivia National
name: República de Bolivia President: Evo Morales (2006)
Current government officials
Land area: 418,683 sq mi (1,084,389 sq
km); total area: 424,164 sq mi (1,098,580 sq km) Population (2008 est.): 9,247,816 (growth
rate: 1.3%); birth rate: 22.3/1000; infant mortality rate: 49.0/1000;
life expectancy: 66.5; density per sq km: 8
Historic and judicial capital (2003 est.):
Sucre, 204,200; Administrative capital:
La Paz, 1,576,100 (metro. area), 830,500 (city proper) Other large cities: Santa Cruz,
1,168,700; Cochabamba, 815,800; El Alto, 728,500; Oruro, 211,700 Monetary unit: Boliviano
Languages:
Spanish, Quechua, Aymara (all official)
Ethnicity/race:
Quechua 30%, mestizo 30%, Aymara 25%, white
15%
National Holiday:
Independence Day, August 6
Religion:
Roman Catholic 95%, Protestant (Evangelical
Methodist) 5% Literacy rate: 87%
(2006 est.) Economic summary:
GDP/PPP (2007 est.): $39.44 billion; per capita $4,000. Real
growth rate: 4.2%. Inflation: 8.7%. Unemployment:
7.5% in urban areas with widespread underemployment. Arable
land: 3%. Agriculture: soybeans, coffee, coca, cotton,
corn, sugarcane, rice, potatoes; timber. Labor force: 4.22
million; agriculture n.a., industry n.a., services n.a.
Industries: mining, smelting, petroleum, food and beverages,
tobacco, handicrafts, clothing. Natural resources: tin, natural
gas, petroleum, zinc, tungsten, antimony, silver, iron, lead, gold,
timber, hydropower. Exports: $2.371 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.):
natural gas, soybeans and soy products, crude petroleum, zinc ore,
tin. Imports: $1.845 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.): petroleum
products, plastics, paper, aircraft and aircraft parts, prepared
foods, automobiles, insecticides, soybeans. Major trading partners:
Brazil, U.S. Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, China,
Japan (2004). Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: 600,100 (2003); mobile cellular:
1,401,500 (2003). Radio broadcast stations: AM 171, FM 73,
shortwave 77 (1999). Television broadcast stations: 48 (1997).
Internet hosts: 7,080 (2003). Internet users: 270,000
(2002). Transportation: Railways:
total: 3,519 km (2004). Highways: total: 60,282 km; paved:
3,979 km; unpaved: 56,303 km (2002). Waterways: 10,000 km
(commercially navigable) (2004). Ports and harbors:Puerto
Aguirre (on the Paraguay/Parana waterway, at the Bolivia/Brazil
border); also, Bolivia has free port privileges in maritime ports in
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. Airports: 1,065 (2004
est.). International disputes: Chile
rebuffs Bolivia's reactivated claim to restore the Atacama corridor,
ceded to Chile in 1884, offering instead unrestricted but not
sovereign maritime access through Chile for Bolivian natural gas and
other commodities.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
Landlocked Bolivia is equal in size to
California and Texas combined. Brazil forms its eastern border; its other
neighbors are Peru and Chile on the west and Argentina and Paraguay on the
south. The western part, enclosed by two chains of the Andes, is a great
plateau—the Altiplano, with an average altitude of 12,000 ft (3,658
m). Almost half the population lives on the plateau, which contains Oruro,
Potosí, and La Paz. At an altitude of 11,910 ft (3,630 m), La Paz
is the highest administrative capital city in the world. The Oriente, a
lowland region ranging from rain forests to grasslands, comprises the
northern and eastern two-thirds of the country. Lake Titicaca, at an
altitude of 12,507 ft (3,812 m), is the highest commercially navigable
body of water in the world.
Government
Republic.
History
Famous since Spanish colonial days for its
mineral wealth, modern Bolivia was once a part of the ancient Inca
empire. After the Spaniards defeated the Incas in the 16th century,
Bolivia's predominantly Indian population was reduced to slavery. The
remoteness of the Andes helped protect the Bolivian Indians from the
European diseases that decimated other South American Indians. But the
existence of a large indigenous group forced to live under the thumb of
their colonizers created a stratified society of haves and have-nots that
continues to this day. Income inequality between the largely impoverished
Indians who make up two-thirds of the country and the light-skinned
European elite remains vast.
By the end of the 17th century, the mineral
wealth had begun to dry up. The country won its independence in 1825 and
was named after Simón Bolívar, the famous liberator.
Hampered by internal strife, Bolivia lost great slices of territory to
three neighboring nations. Several thousand square miles and its outlet to
the Pacific were taken by Chile after the War of the Pacific
(1879–1884). In 1903, a piece of Bolivia's Acre Province, rich in
rubber, was ceded to Brazil. And in 1938, after losing the Chaco War of
1932–1935 to Paraguay, Bolivia gave up its claim to nearly 100,000
sq mi of the Gran Chaco. Political instability ensued.
In 1965, a guerrilla movement mounted from Cuba
and headed by Maj. Ernesto (Ché) Guevara began a revolutionary war.
With the aid of U.S. military advisers, the Bolivian army smashed the
guerrilla movement, capturing and killing Guevara on Oct. 8, 1967. A
string of military coups followed before the military returned the
government to civilian rule in 1982, when Hernán Siles Zuazo became
president. At that point, Bolivia was regularly shut down by work
stoppages and had the lowest per capita income in South America.
In June 1993, free-market advocate Gonzalo
Sánchez de Lozada was elected president. He was succeeded by former
general Hugo Bánzer, an ex-dictator turned democrat who became
president for the second time in Aug. 1997. Bánzer made significant
progress in wiping out illicit coca production and drug trafficking, which
pleased the United States. However, the eradication of coca, a major crop
in Bolivia since Incan times, plunged many Bolivian farmers into abject
poverty. Although Bolivia sits on South America's second-largest natural
gas reserves as well as considerable oil, the country has remained one of
the poorest on the continent.
In Aug. 2002, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada
again became president, pledging to continue economic reforms and to
create jobs. In Oct. 2003, Sánchez resigned after months of
rioting and strikes over a gas-exporting project that protesters believed
would benefit foreign companies more than Bolivians. His vice president,
Carlos Mesa, replaced him. Despite continued unrest, Mesa remained popular
during his first two years as president. In a July 2004 referendum on the
future of the country's significant natural gas reserves (the second
largest in South America), Bolivians overwhelmingly supported Mesa's plan
to exert more control over foreign gas companies. Mesa managed to satisfy
the strong antiprivatization sentiment among Bolivians without shutting
the door on some limited form of privatization in the future. But rising
fuel prices in 2005 led to massive protests by tens of thousands of
impoverished farmers and miners, and on June 6 Mesa resigned. Supreme
court justice Eduardo Rodriguez took over as interim president.
Bolivia's First Indigenous President Asserts the Rights of the Native Population
Bolivian Indian activist Evo Morales of the
Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) won 54% of the vote in Dec. 2005
presidential elections, becoming the country's first indigenous president.
He carried out two of his three major initiatives in 2006: nationalizing
Bolivia's energy industry, which is expected to double the country's
annual revenues; and forming in August a constituent assembly to rewrite
the constitution, which will ensure greater rights for indigenous
Bolivians. His third major initiative is to legalize the growing of coca,
which many Bolivians consider an integral part of their culture. In July
2007, Morales announced plans to nationalize the country's railways, which
for the past 10 years have been run by investors from Chile and the United
States. His controversial coca policy, his plans to limit foreign
investment, and his close ties with the leftist governments of Venezuela
and Cuba have predictably antagonized the United States. Morales has
referred to himself as the “United States' biggest
nightmare.”
On Dec. 9, 2007, Morales presented a new
constitution to congress. The new chapter, which will give indigenous
people more rights, recognize 37 official languages, and grant indigenous
communities autonomy, was approved by 164 of the 255 constituent assembly
members. The opposition boycotted the meeting, however, claiming that the
document is illegal because it was not approved by the required two-thirds
majority. Regardless of the opposition, the government plans to submit the
document to a referendum in 2008.
On May 4, 2008, at least one person died and
many were injured when clashes broke out in the Santa Cruz province after
a poll was held in opposition to President Morale's government. The
government strongly disapproved of the prosposed referendum, which would
give more autonomy to the Santa Cruz province, including the ability to
elect its own legislature, raise taxes for public works, and create its
own police force.
On Aug. 10, 2008, President Morales won a recall
referendum with 63.5 percent of voters supporting his administration. The
recall vote was an unsuccessful effort to remove Morales from office by
Podemos, an opposition party—Morales has garnered criticism from
some lowland provinces for his policies, including the acceptance of
financing from Venezuela.
On Sept. 10, 2008, President Morales ordered the
U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Philip Goldberg, to leave the country,
accusing Goldberg of "conspiring against democracy" and encouraging rebel
groups who were protesting in eastern Bolivia.
In November, 2008, relations between Bolivia and
the United States deteriorated further—the U.S. suspended duty-free
access for Bolivian exports and President Morales suspended U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration operations, accusing its agents of
espionage.
See also Encyclopedia: Bolivia.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Bolivia
National Institute of Statistics (INE) (In Spanish Only)
www.ine.gov.bo/ .
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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