UNESCO Heritage Sites

In the pre-Hispanic period, Potosí was only a small hamlet perched at an altitude of 4,000 m, in the icy solitude of the Andes. It owes its prosperity to the discovery, between 1542 and 1545, of the New World's biggest silver lodes in the Cerro de Potosí, the mountain south of the city which overlooks it. As a result, Potosí is directly and tangibly associated with an event of outstanding universal significance: the economic change brought about in the 16th century by the flood of Spanish currency resulting from the massive import of precious metals from the New World into Seville. Continent: South America Country: Bolivia Category: Cultural Criterion: (II)(IV) (VI) Date of Inscription: 1987

The Kempff Mercado National Park is one of the largest (1,523,000 ha) and most intact parks in the Amazon Basin. With an altitudinal range of 200 m to about 1,000 m, it contains a rich mosaic of habitat types from cerrado savannah and forest to upland evergreen Amazonian forests. The park boasts an evolutionary history dating back over a billion years to the Precambrian. Located on the border with Brazil, the site includes a large section of the Huanchaca Plateau and surrounding lowlands. There are rugged cliffs in the northern, western and southern sides of the plateau, with several valleys and steep slopes in its eastern side. Several rivers have their sources on the plateau and form spectacular waterfalls. The largest river in the area is the Iténez, which marks the border with Brazil, to the north of the park, and the Paraguá River dominates the lowlands to the west. Continent: South America Country: Bolivia Category: Natural Criterion: (IX)(X) Date of Inscription: ...

Jesuit Missions sent by the Spanish Crown to assure the conquest of the Indias del Cielo, the Jesuit fathers arrived at the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1567 to bring Christianity to the indigenous communities. The first collegial church was founded in 1577 at Potosí, on Bolivian territory; in 1592 a new house was established at Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The Jesuits seemed to have rationalized, in the Chiquito territory, the model of reducciones (settlements of Christianized Indians) which was largely inspired by the ideal city of the humanist philosophers. Between 1696 and 1760, six groups of reducciones were founded in a style that married Roman Catholic architecture with local traditions. Continent: South America Country: Bolivia Category: Cultural Criterion: (IV)(V) Date of Inscription: 1990