Bolivia reaches from the Altiplano around Lake Titicaca and the silver and tin mountains of the Andes down through the warm valleys of Cochabamba, Chuquisaca and Tarija to the savannas of Moxos, the forests of Chiquitos and the dry scrub of the Chaco. Here the peoples of the Titicaca basin domesticated the potato, quinoa, the llama and the alpaca, and from the villages of Chiripa and Wankarani grew Tiwanaku, one of the great states of the ancient Andes, while the peoples of the lowlands raised mound towns and causeways across the plains of Moxos.

After the fall of Tiwanaku, Aymara lordships divided the Altiplano until the Incas made it Kollasuyu, the southern quarter of their empire. Spaniards conquered Charcas in 1538, and the silver mountain of Potosí, found in 1545 and worked through the forced labour of the mit'a, made the Audiencia of Charcas one of the richest lands of the Spanish empire. Túpac Katari and Bartolina Sisa besieged La Paz in 1781, Chuquisaca and La Paz rose in 1809, and after sixteen years of war the assembly at Chuquisaca declared independence on 6 August 1825 and named the republic after Bolívar.

The republic passed through the Peru–Bolivian Confederation and the rule of the caudillos, lost its coast to Chile in the War of the Pacific, Acre to Brazil and most of the Chaco to Paraguay, and lived for decades on the tin of Patiño and the other mining barons. The National Revolution of 1952 nationalised the mines, gave the vote to all adults and broke up the haciendas; eighteen years of mostly military rule followed from 1964. Democracy returned in 1982, and in 2006 Evo Morales became the first Indigenous president and refounded Bolivia as a Plurinational State, before the crisis of 2019, economic hardship and the election of Rodrigo Paz in 2025.

Explore the ten ages below through selected events from the timeline.