BOLIVIA
- National name: República de Bolivia (BOL)
- Land area: 418,683 sq mi (1,084,389 sq km); total area: 424,164 sq mi (1,098,580 sq km)
- Population (2014 est.): 10,631,486 (growth rate: 1.6%); birth rate: 23.28/1000; infant mortality rate: 38.61/1000; life expectancy: 68.55
- Historic and judicial capital (2011 est.) Sucre, 307,000;
- Administrative capital: La Paz, 1.715 million
- Other large cities: Santa Cruz 1.719 million (2011)
- Monetary unit: Boliviano
- Telephone code; 591
- Electricity: 115/23V, 50Hz; plugs/sockets Type A and C (Euro)
- Languages: Spanish (official) 60.7%, Quechua (official) 21.2%, Aymara (official) 14.6%, Guarani (official), foreign languages 2.4%, other 1.2% note: Bolivia's 2009 constitution designates Spanish and all indigenous languages as official; 36 indigenous languages are specified, including some that are extinct (2001 census)
- Ethnicity/race: Quechua 30%, mestizo 30%, Aymara 25%, white 15%
- National Holiday: Independence Day, August 6
- Religion: Roman Catholic 95%, Protestant (Evangelical Methodist) 5%
- Literacy rate: 91.2% (2009 est.)
- Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2013 est.): $59.11 billion; per capita $5,500. Real growth rate: 6.8%. Inflation: 6.5%.
- Unemployment: 7.4% in urban areas with widespread underemployment.
- Arable land: 3.49%.
- Agriculture: soybeans, coffee, coca, cotton, corn, sugarcane, rice, potatoes; timber.
- Labor force:4.922 million; agriculture 32%, industry 27.4%, services 40.6%.
- Industries: mining, smelting, petroleum, food and beverages, tobacco, handicrafts, clothing.
- Natural resources: tin, natural gas, petroleum, zinc, tungsten, antimony, silver, iron, lead, gold, timber, hydropower.
- Exports: $12.16 billion (2013 est.): natural gas, soybeans and soy products, crude petroleum, zinc ore, tin.
- Imports: $9.282 billion (2013 est.): petroleum products, plastics, paper, aircraft and aircraft parts, prepared foods, automobiles, insecticides, soybeans.
- Major trading partners: Brazil, U.S. Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Chile, China, (2012).
Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 880,600 (2012); mobile cellular: 9.494 (2012). Broadcast media: large number of radio and TV stations broadcasting with private media outlets dominating; state-owned and private radio and TV stations generally operating freely, although both pro-government and anti-government groups have attacked media outlets in response to their reporting (2010). Internet hosts: 180,988 (2012). Internet users: 1.103 million (2009). - Transportation: Railways: total: 3,652 km (2010). Highways: total: 80,488 km; (2010). Waterways:10,000 km (commercially navigable) (2012). Ports and harbors: Puerto Aguirre (on the Paraguay/Parana waterway, at the Bolivia/Brazil border); also, Bolivia has free port privileges in maritime ports in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Paraguay. Airports: 855 (2013 est.).
- International disputes: Chile and Peru rebuff Bolivia's reactivated claim to restore the Atacama corridor, ceded to Chile in 1884, but Chile offers instead unrestricted but not sovereign maritime access through Chile for Bolivian natural gas; contraband smuggling, human trafficking, and illegal narcotic trafficking are problems in the porous areas of the border with Argentina.
- Geography: landlocked Bolivia is equal in size to California and Texas combined. Brazil forms its eastern border; its other neighbors are Peru and Chile on the west and Argentina and Paraguay on the south. The western part, enclosed by two chains of the Andes, is a great plateau—the Altiplano, with an average altitude of 12,000 ft (3,658 m). Almost half the population lives on the plateau, which contains Oruro, Potosí, and La Paz. At an altitude of 11,910 ft (3,630 m), La Paz is the highest administrative capital city in the world. The Oriente, a lowland region ranging from rain forests to grasslands, comprises the northern and eastern two-thirds of the country. Lake Titicaca, at an altitude of 12,507 ft (3,812 m), is the highest commercially navigable body of water in the world.