Bolivia
|
Bolivia is one of two land-locked countries in South America. It borders the countries of Argentina and Paraguay in the south, Brazil in the east and north, and Chile and Peru to the west. Bolivia shares control of Lake Titicaca, world's highest navigable lake (elevation 3,805 metres), with Peru
Its major environmental issues include the clearing of land for agricultural purposes and the international demand for tropical timber are contributing to deforestation; soil erosion from overgrazing and poor cultivation methods (including slash-and-burn agriculture); desertification; loss of biodiversity; and industrial pollution of water supplies used for drinking and irrigation.
Bolivia, named after independence fighter Simon Bolivar, broke away from Spanish rule in 1825; much of its subsequent history has consisted of a series of nearly 200 coups and countercoups. Democratic civilian rule was established in 1982, but leaders have faced difficult problems of deep-seated poverty, social unrest, and illegal drug production. In December 2005, Bolivians elected Movement Toward Socialism leader Evo Morales president - by the widest margin of any leader since the restoration of civilian rule in 1982 - after he ran on a promise to change the country's traditional political class and empower the nation's poor, indigenous majority. However, since taking office, his controversial strategies have exacerbated racial and economic tensions between the Amerindian populations of the Andean west and the non-indigenous communities of the eastern lowlands.
Geography
Location: Central South America, southwest of Brazil
Geographic Coordinates: 17 00 S, 65 00 W
Area: 1,098,580 km2 (1,084,390 km2 land and 14,190 km2 water)
arable land: 2.78%
permanent crops: 0.19%
other: 97.03% (2005)
Land Boundaries: 6,940 km - border countries: Argentina 832 km, Brazil 3,423 km, Chile 860 km, Paraguay 750 km, Peru 1,075 km
Coastline: None
Maritime Claims: None
Natural Hazards: Flooding in the northeast (March-April)
Terrain: Rugged Andes Mountains with a highland plateau (Altiplano), hills, lowland plains of the Amazon Basin. The lowest point is Rio Paraguay (90 metres) and the highest point is Nevado Sajama (6,542 metres).
Climate: Varies with altitude; humid and tropical to cold and semiarid.
Capital: La Paz
Biodiversity and Ecology
The richest and most diverse region on Earth, the Tropical Andes spans 1,542,644 km2, from western Venezuela to northern Chile and Argentina, and includes large portions of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. The Cerrado spreads across 2,031,990 km2 of the central Brazilian Plateau. The second largest of Brazil's major biomes, after Amazonia, the hotspot accounts for a full 21 percent of the country's land area (it also extends marginally into Paraguay and Bolivia). The most extensive woodland/savanna region in South America, the Cerrado is also the only hotspot that consists largely of savanna, woodland/savanna and dry forest ecosystems.
Ecoregions
- Beni savanna
- Bolivian Yungas
- Bolivian montane dry forests
- Central Andean dry puna
- Central Andean puna
- Central Andean wet puna
- Cerrado
- Chaco
- Chiquitano dry forests
- Iquitos varzea
- Pantanal
- Southern Andean Yungas
- Southwest Amazon moist forests
Protected Areas
International Environmental Agreements
Bolivia is party to international agreements on Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, and Wetlands.
People and Society
Population: 9,775,246 (July 2009 est.)
Age Structure: Median age: 21.9 years
0-14 years: 35.5% (male 1,767,310/female 1,701,744)
15-64 years: 60% (male 2,877,605/female 2,992,043)
65 years and over: 4.5% (male 193,196/female 243,348) (2009 est.)
Population Growth Rate: 1.772% (2009 est.)
Birthrate: 22.31 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Death Rate: 7.35 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.
Net Migration Rate: -1.05 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2009 est.)
Life Expectancy at Birth: 66.89 years
Total Fertility Rate: 3.17 children born/woman (2009 est.)
Languages: Spanish 60.7% (official), Quechua 21.2% (official), Aymara 14.6% (official), foreign languages 2.4%, other 1.2% (2001 census)
Literacy: 86.7%
Economy
Bolivia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in Latin America. Following a disastrous economic crisis during the early 1980s, reforms spurred private investment, stimulated economic growth, and cut poverty rates in the 1990s. The period 2003-05 was characterized by political instability, racial tensions, and violent protests against plans - subsequently abandoned - to export Bolivia's newly discovered natural gas reserves to large northern hemisphere markets. In 2005, the government passed a controversial hydrocarbons law that imposed significantly higher royalties and required foreign firms then operating under risk-sharing contracts to surrender all production to the state energy company. In early 2008, higher earnings for mining and hydrocarbons exports pushed the current account surplus to 9.4% of GDP and the government's higher tax take produced a fiscal surplus after years of large deficits. Private investment as a share of GDP, however, remains among the lowest in Latin America, and inflation remained at double-digit levels in 2008. The decline in commodity prices in late 2008, the lack of foreign investment in the mining and hydrocarbon sectors, and the suspension of trade benefits with the United States will pose challenges for the Bolivian economy in 2009.
GDP: (Purchasing Power Parity): $43.08 billion (2008 est.)
GDP-real growth rate: 5.6% (2008 est.)
GDP- per capita (PPP): $4,500 (2008 est.)
GDP- composition by sector:
agriculture: 11.3%
industry: 36.9%
services: 51.8% (2008 est.)
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
Currency: Bolivianos (BOB)
Further Reading
Return to Bolivia's country profile
Return to the Latin America and the Caribbean Collection