The Andean region has probably been inhabited for some 20,000 years. Around 2000 B.C., the Tiwanakan culture developed at the southern end of Lake Titicaca. The Tiwanakan culture centered around and was named after the great city Tiwanaku.

The people developed advanced architectural and agricultural techniques before disappearing about 1200 A.D., probably because of extended drought.

Roughly contemporaneous with the Tiwanakan culture, the Moxos in the eastern lowlands and the Mollos north of present-day La Paz also developed advanced agricultural societies that had dissipated by the 13th century.

Around 1450, the Quechua-speaking Incas entered the area of modern highland Bolivia and added it to their empire. They controlled the area until the Spanish conquest in 1525.

During most of the Spanish colonial period, this territory was called “Upper Peru” or “Charcas” and was under the authority of the Viceroy of Lima. Local government came from the Audiencia de Charcas located in Chuquisaca (La Plata–modern day Sucre).

Bolivian silver mines produced much of the Spanish empire’s wealth. Potosi, site of the famed Cerro Rico — “Rich Mountain” — was, for many years, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere.

As Spanish royal authority weakened during the Napoleonic wars, sentiment against colonial rule grew. Independence was proclaimed in 1809. Sixteen years of struggle followed before the establishment of the republic, named after Simon Bolivar, on August 6, 1825.

Independence did not bring stability. For nearly 60 years, short-lived, weak institutions and frequent coups characterized Bolivian politics. The War of the Pacific (1879-83) demonstrated Bolivia’s weakness when it was defeated by Chile. Chile took lands that contained rich nitrate fields and removed Bolivia’s access to the sea.

An increase in world silver prices brought Bolivia prosperity and political stability in the late 1800s. Tin eventually replaced silver as the country’s most important source of wealth during the early part of the 20th century.

Successive governments controlled by economic and social elites followed laissez-faire capitalist policies through the first third of the century.

Indigenous living conditions remained deplorable. Forced to work under primitive conditions in the mines and in nearly feudal status on large estates, indigenous people were denied access to education, economic opportunity, or political participation.

Bolivia’s defeat by Paraguay in the Chaco War (1932-35) marked a turning point. Great loss of life and territory discredited the traditional ruling classes, while service in the army produced stirrings of political awareness among the indigenous people and more of a shared national identity generally.

From the end of the Chaco War until the 1952 revolution, the emergence of contending ideologies and the demands of new groups convulsed Bolivian politics.