Bolivia—named for Simon Bolívar, liberator of much of South America—is poor, mountainous, and landlocked. Over 60 percent of Bolivia's people are Indian, mostly Quechua or Aymara; the rest are European and mixed. Many are subsistence farmers on the Altiplano (pronounced ahl-tee-PLAH-noh). Here La Paz, with 1.5 million people, sprawls amid snowy peaks near Lake Titicaca. The waters of Lake Titicaca help warm the air, otherwise La Paz, the world's highest capital city at 3,600 meters (11,800 feet), would not be livable. Bolivia has a second capital at Sucre, named after its first president, where the supreme court resides.
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