Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America.
It has a very diverse geography with the Altiplano in the West and the Amazon
basin Lowlands to the east.
During the second part of the first millenium AD the Tiwanaku empire dominated the highlands,
including large chunks of Peru and Chile.
Later the Inca's took control untill the arrival of the conquestadors who grabbed the land
and its wealth for Spain.
Under Sucre independence was gained in 1825. Soon a quarrel with neighbours Chile, Argentina and
Peru started. At the end of two wars Bolivia had lost half of its territory and and its direct access to sea.
The administrative
capital and seat of the Bolivian
government is located in La Paz, with Sucre in the Santa Cruz region as the constitutional
capital.
Despite large riches in gas, Bolivia is one of the poorest countries of South America, and there are often tensions
between the poor people on the Altiplano and the relatively wealthy in the Eastern Lowlands.