Bolivia

The Bolivian highlands were home to the ancient Tiwanaku civilisation long before the Inca Empire absorbed the region. Spanish conquest brought a discovery that would shake the world economy: the silver mountain of Potosi, whose mines produced staggering wealth, much of it extracted through the brutal forced labour of indigenous people, and funded the Spanish Empire for generations. Bolivia won independence in 1825, taking its name from Bolivar, but its later history was marked by instability, lost wars, and frequent changes of government.

Bolivia is dominated by the Andes, which here broaden into a high plateau called the Altiplano, a cold, treeless expanse sitting more than three kilometres above sea level. On it lie Lake Titicaca, the highest large navigable lake in the world, shared with Peru, and the vast Uyuni salt flat, the largest salt flat on Earth, a dazzling white expanse. East of the mountains the land descends into tropical lowlands and rainforest. Bolivia famously lost its access to the sea in a nineteenth-century war.

The flag of Bolivia has three horizontal bands of red, yellow, and green, with the national coat of arms in the centre of official versions. The red is said to represent the blood and bravery of those who fought for the country, the yellow its mineral wealth, and the green the fertility of its land. Alongside this flag, Bolivia also officially recognises the wiphala, a colourful checkered banner representing its indigenous Andean peoples.

Bolivia is a predominantly Roman Catholic country, but its religious life is deeply blended with indigenous Andean beliefs, perhaps more visibly than almost anywhere in the Americas. Reverence for Pachamama, the earth mother, and for the spirits of the mountains is woven together with Catholic practice in festivals and daily ritual. This fusion of Christian and ancestral belief reflects the strength of the country's indigenous heritage and gives Bolivian spirituality a distinctive character.

Bolivian cuisine varies sharply between the cold highlands and the tropical lowlands. The Altiplano is the homeland of the potato, grown in hundreds of varieties, and of quinoa, the nutritious grain now prized worldwide. A popular snack is the salteña, a juicy baked pastry filled with meat and sauce. Dishes feature corn, beans, and, in the highlands, the meat of the llama, while the warmer lowlands add rice and tropical produce to the national table.

Agriculture in Bolivia spans an enormous range of altitude and climate. The highlands are an ancient centre of crop domestication, producing potatoes and quinoa, of which Bolivia is a leading grower, while the eastern lowlands have expanded into large-scale farming of soybeans and other crops. The country is also a major producer of coca, the leaf with deep traditional and ceremonial uses in Andean culture that is also the raw material of cocaine, a source of ongoing controversy.

The ancient Tiwanaku civilisation and the silver of Potosi mark the deep history of Bolivia, the latter shaping the global economy of its age. Independence in 1825 created the nation, but the loss of its Pacific coastline to Chile in the War of the Pacific left it landlocked, a grievance felt to this day. In 2006 Evo Morales became the country's first president of indigenous descent, a landmark in the history of a nation with so large a native population.

Bolivia has a population of around 12 million people and one of the largest proportions of indigenous people of any country in the Americas, with the Quechua and Aymara the most numerous, alongside mestizos and others. Many indigenous languages are official alongside Spanish. The population is concentrated in the highland cities, including the seat of government, La Paz, the highest capital city in the world, and the constitutional capital, Sucre, as well as the booming lowland city of Santa Cruz.