Official Name: República de Bolivia (Republic of Bolivia).

Area: South America

Size: 1,098,581 km² 

Coastline: Landlocked

Independence: from Spain August 6, 1825 

Form of Govt.: Unitary multiparty republic

Head of Govt.: President

Capital: Sucre

Largest City: Santa Cruz de la Sierra

Demographics (2005): 8,857,870,    8.4 /km² 

Quechua 30%, mestizo (mixed white and Amerindian ancestry) 30%, Aymara 25%, white 15%,

GDP per Capita (2005): $2,817

Languages: Spanish, Quechua, Aymara

Geography: (1.) the Altiplano, which is a high plateau that crosses the country from the northwest to the southeast and splits the Andes into two mountain chains or cordilleras. The plateau cradles the highest navigable lake in the world called Lake Titicaca. (2.) The Yungas which are made up of sharply tilted mountain valleys that separate the higher plateau from the lowland plains. (3.) The Llanos which is the lowland plain in the southern region and is also a highly developed agricultural region, in addition to having Bolivia's major deposits of oil, natural gas and iron ore. To the northeast of the Llanos region, the plains form part of the Amazon River Basin containing tropical forests and dense vegetation mixed with open savannah.

Climate: Bolivia has a tropical climate, although the difference in altitude produces a variety of different climatic conditions. Generally, both temperature and rainfall increase from west to east. The Altiplano is inhospitable for most of the year while the Yungas has a semitropical climate and the Llanos becomes drier to the south. Average temperature ranges in La Paz are from 1 to 17 degrees in July to 6 to 19 degrees in November.