BOLIVIA

Bolivia is a country of South America. It capital is La Paz. It is bordered by Brazil on the north and east, Paraguay and Argentina on the south, and Chile and Peru on the west. People speak three lenguages: spanish, quechua and aymara. The western part, enclosed by two chains of the Andes.

History:Famous since Spanish colonial days for its mineral wealth, modern Bolivia was once a part of the ancient Incan empire.Bolivia's predominantly Indian population was reduced to slavery. The remoteness of the Andes helped protect the Bolivian Indians from the European diseases that decimated other South American Indians.

Geography:Bolivia has been a landlocked nation since 1879 when it lost its coastal department of Litoral to Chile in the War of the Pacific. However, it does have access to the Atlantic via the Paraguay river. An enormous diversity of ecological zones are represented within Bolivia's territory.

Lake Titicaca is located on the border between Bolivia and Peru.

Culture: The best known of the various festivals found in the country is the "Carnaval de Oruro", which was among the first 19 "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity," as proclaimed by the UNESCO in May of 2001.
Entertainment includes football (soccer), which is the national sport, as well as table football, which is played on street-corners by both children and adults.

Bolivia is the second poorest country in the Americans an d Caribbean, after Haiti.

Climate:

Altitude and the changes in annual precipitation toward the southwest dominate the climate of Bolivia. Widely varing conditions can often be seen over short disctances. Average seasonal temperatures ranges are generally smaller than the average diurnal ranges. The average temperatures of the coldest (June/July) and the warmest (November) months at La Paz .

Goverment:

Bolivia's president is Evo Morales.