ABSTRACT
More than 75 percent of Bolivia’s population of some 6.5 million lives in the highlands, an area dominated by the cold, high central plain (Spanish altiplano ‘high plain’). At an altitude of 4 kilometers, the altiplano is bordered by two steep mountain ranges. The western cordillera follows the border with Chile, and the eastern cordillera drops through intermontane valleys toward the Amazon basin. The hot, eastern lowlands, which make up more than 60 percent of the country’s area, are much less densely populated and comprise plains and tropical forest.
