Bolivia
Bolivia Geography & Climate
Geography
Bolivia covers about 1.1 million square kilometres, is landlocked, and has more vertical range than almost any country on earth — from 6,542 metres on Sajama to 70 metres in the Amazon lowlands.
The altiplano
A high plateau between 3,600 and 4,000 metres, running between the Cordillera Occidental on the Chilean border and the Cordillera Real to the east. It is cold, dry, treeless and holds a large share of the population, including La Paz — which sits in a canyon below El Alto on the rim, making it the highest seat of government in the world.
The Salar de Uyuni
The world’s largest salt flat, over ten thousand square kilometres of crust up to ten metres thick, left by an evaporated prehistoric lake. It is so flat that satellites use it for altimeter calibration, and a film of rainwater turns the whole surface into a mirror. Beneath it lies one of the largest lithium resources on the planet.
Lake Titicaca
Shared with Peru, at 3,812 metres, the highest commercially navigable lake in the world and large enough to have its own weather.
The Yungas and the lowlands
East of the Cordillera Real the land falls dramatically through the cloud forest of the Yungas into tropical lowlands that make up around two thirds of the country: Amazon rainforest in the north, the seasonally flooded Llanos de Moxos in the Beni, and dry Chaco Boreal scrub in the south-east. Santa Cruz Department, down here, is now the largest city.
No coast
Bolivia lost its Pacific coastline to Chile in the War of the Pacific in 1884 and has never accepted it, maintaining a navy on Lake Titicaca and marking a Day of the Sea each March.
Climate Patterns
Bolivia’s climate has almost nothing to do with latitude and everything to do with height. The country spans from above six thousand metres to below one hundred, and the difference between two places a few hours apart can be thirty degrees.
The altiplano
At 3,600 to 4,000 metres the air is thin, dry and startlingly clear. Days in the dry season reach 15 to 20°C in strong sun; nights drop below freezing, and in June and July can reach −15°C on the open plateau and in the Uyuni lagoons. The temperature swing within a single day is the thing visitors underestimate.
The valleys
Sucre, Cochabamba and Tarija sit between 1,800 and 2,800 metres and have the most agreeable climate in the country — spring-like year round, which is why Bolivians describe Cochabamba as having eternal spring.
The lowlands
The Amazon and the Beni are hot and humid, 25 to 35°C with heavy rain from November to March. Santa Cruz Department and the Chaco Boreal are hot and drier. In winter, cold fronts called surazos occasionally sweep north from Patagonia and drop lowland temperatures by twenty degrees in hours.
Two seasons
The dry season runs May to October and the wet November to April. In the lowlands the wet season closes unpaved roads; on the altiplano it brings afternoon storms and, on the Salar de Uyuni, the shallow water that makes the mirror.
Sun and altitude
Ultraviolet levels on the altiplano are among the highest recorded anywhere, because of altitude and thin dry air combined. Sunburn at 4,000 metres happens in minutes even when the air is cold.