La Paz

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La Paz
Basic data
Population (state)

population density
757,184 inhabitants (2012 census)
4044 inhabitants / km²
rank Rank 3
surface 187.24 km²
height 3600  m
Agglomeration 2.0 million ( 2012 )
Telephone code + 591-2 -...
Coordinates 16 ° 30 ′  S , 68 ° 9 ′  W Coordinates: 16 ° 30 ′  S , 68 ° 9 ′  W
La Paz (Bolivia)
La Paz
La Paz
politics
Department La Paz
province Murillo Province
mayor Luis Revilla
Homepage of La Paz
La Paz Coat of Arms

La Paz ( Nuestra Señora de La Paz , Aymara : Chuquiyapu Marka or Chuquiago ) is the capital of the La Paz department and the seat of government of Bolivia (capital: Sucre ). With an altitude of 3200 to 4100 m (including the now independent El Alto ), it is the world's highest seat of government.

The full name of the city was initially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (" Our Lady of Peace") because of a prevented uprising by the indigenous people ; It was given its current name in 1825 to commemorate the victorious battle of Ayacucho in the war of independence against the Spanish .

In a ranking of cities according to their quality of life , La Paz took 156th place out of 231 cities worldwide in 2018.

geography

Location in the vicinity

The city is located in the district ( Bolivian : Municipio ) La Paz at about 3600  m in the 400 m deep canyon of the Río Chokeyapu , which is cut into the surrounding plateau of the Altiplano and widens into a basin with a protected and pleasant climate.

The city of El Alto arose on the plateau west of La Paz , which with 848,840 inhabitants (2012 census) is now larger than La Paz; there is the international airport La Paz-El Alto . The difference in altitude between the southern districts further down the valley with many villas and the outskirts at the upper end of the basin is almost 1000 m, which leads to one of the most spectacular views of Bolivia on the descent from El Alto down to La Paz. There is a clear relationship between the altitude of the residential areas and the social status of their residents: the higher the location, the poorer the residents. With an average decrease in temperature of 0.6 ° C per 100 m, the difference between the lowest and highest residential areas is 6 ° C as an annual mean; Altitude sickness is also a bigger problem for non-residents in the upper quarters.

The city is dominated by the mighty Illimani (6,439 m) with its four peaks. With a little imagination you can see a picture of an Indian with a wife, a child and a lama in the rocks on its slopes .

climate

Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for La Paz
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Max. Temperature ( ° C ) 17th 17th 18th 18th 18th 17th 17th 17th 18th 19th 19th 18th O 17.8
Min. Temperature (° C) 6th 6th 6th 4th 3 1 1 2 3 4th 6th 6th O 4th
Precipitation ( mm ) 114 107 66 33 13 8th 10 13 28 41 48 94 Σ 575
Hours of sunshine ( h / d ) 6th 5 5 6th 8th 9 9 8th 7th 6th 6th 6th O 6.8
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
17th
6th
17th
6th
18th
6th
18th
4th
18th
3
17th
1
17th
1
17th
2
18th
3
19th
4th
19th
6th
18th
6th
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
N
i
e
d
e
r
s
c
h
l
a
g
114
107
66
33
13
8th
10
13
28
41
48
94
  Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Source: BBC Weather

The climate of La Paz is alpine oceanic ( Cwc ) due to the altitude .

Cityscape

Center of La Paz
Plaza Murillo with Parliament Building (left) and Presidential Palace (right)

The inner city differs only slightly from other large cities. Neon signs and posters, diverse shopping opportunities with international products and modern office buildings dominate the picture. The Church of San Francisco , whose construction began in 1549, is worth seeing . As in every Bolivian city, there are market halls and huge open markets, whereby the bizarre so-called "witch's market" (the local market for trading in ritual goods is so called among tourists) is a specialty. The “black market” (Mercado negro) is almost seamlessly connected to the Hexenmarkt. The shop and stall owners here pay no or hardly any taxes, but the market is too important (jobs, money, etc.) for the government to take serious action against it. There are numerous museums in the city center. The Coca Museum is better known. It describes the history of coca from its beginnings as part of cult rites to its use in modern medicine .

The city itself is divided into two parts: a northern part, which includes the city center and a large part of the cultural facilities; and a southern part, in which single-family houses dominate the picture. Both parts are connected with an urban motorway for cars and a main road for public transport. The southern part is much lower than the center, is warmer and therefore very popular with the affluent class of the population. Since further expansion of the northern part fails due to lack of space, the south grows even more.

Districts

Districts of La Paz
LaPaz-5.png
N ° Administrative district Districts of La Paz
1 Mallasa Amor de Dios • Mallasa • Muela del Diablo • Mallasilla • Jupapina
2 Zona Sur Obrajes • Bella Vista • Bolonia • Irpavi • Calacoto • Cota Cota • Achumani • Ovejuyo • Koani • La Florida • Seguencoma • San Miguel
3 San Antonio San Antonio • Villa Copacabana • Pampahasi • Valle Hermoso • Kupini • Villa Armonia • Callapa • San Isidro
4th Periferica Achachicala • Chuquiaguillo • Villa Fátima • Vino Tinto • 5 dedos • Santiago de Lacaya • Rosasani
5 Max Paredes Munaypata • La Portada • El Tejar • Gran Poder • Obispo Indaburu • Chamoco Chico • Munaypata • Pura Pura • Ciudadela Ferroviaria
6th Zona Centro Casco Urbano Central • San Jorge • Miraflores • San Sebastián • Santa Bárbara • Parque Urbano Central
7th Cotahuma Sopocachi • Alto Sopocachi • Pasankeri • Tembladerani • Alpacoma • Belén • Tacagua • San Pedro • Bajo Llojeta
  • Casco Viejo: Casco Viejo is the old town and the former center of La Paz. There are museums, hotels, shops and important buildings such as the Alcadia Municipal de La Paz and the central bank of Bolivia, Banco Central de Bolivia . The Cathedral , the Government Palace and the National Congress are located in Plaza Murillo .
  • Zona Central: Zona Central is known as "the middle". This is where the district of Zona San Jorge is located . In this part of the city there are shops, hotels and many embassies. There are also several apartment buildings as well as restaurants and nightclubs.
  • Sopocachi: Sopocachi is one of the oldest residential areas in the city.
  • San Pedro: San Pedro is one of the oldest parts of the city. Its center is the so-called "Plaza de San Pedro" (official name: Plaza Sucre) on the right bank of the Choqueyapu River . It is home to numerous shops, printers and car dealerships, and the prison town of San Pedro . The Mercado Rodriguez , one of the largest and oldest markets in the city, is also located in San Pedro .
  • Miraflores: Miraflores is clearly separated from the city center. Around 45,000 people now live in this district. This district was founded in 1927 by urbanist Dr. Emilio Villanueva planned. Miraflores is known as a resort town, is home to a large shopping center, major universities and hospitals with the important medical faculty of the UMSA . Miraflores is home to the largest stadium in La Paz, the Estadio Hernando Siles .
  • Zona Norte: Zona Norte is particularly characterized by its industry (especially the food industry). The highway that connects La Paz with the city of El Alto also begins in Zona Norte .
  • Zona Sur: The Zona Sur is the lowest point in La Paz and lies at an altitude of 3,200 m. This district is the largest residential area in La Paz. The Zona Sur has seen strong growth recently and is considered a residential area for the wealthy.

history

La Paz was founded in 1548 by Alonso de Mendoza as a stop on the trade route from Potosí to Callao in Peru . The formal founding act for the new city was carried out on October 20, 1548 in the village of Laja (approx. 25 km west of today's La Paz). Three days later a place in the valley of the Río Chokeyapu was determined as the location for the new city and part of the inhabitants of Laja were relocated. The valley offered protection from the harsh weather on the Altiplano plateau, and gold deposits were also found here. The new city was conveniently located at the intersection of the Silver Trail from Potosí to Peru and the Coca Trail from the Yungas .

The determination of Sucres to be the capital after Bolivia's independence in 1825 did not diminish the importance of La Paz. On October 25, 1830, the University Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA for short) was founded by a supreme decree .

In 1899, after a brief revolt, the city was designated the seat of government, as it was the only major Bolivian city not affected by the economic decline of Potosí.

population

The population of the city of La Paz has more than doubled in the past six decades, but has declined in the first decade of the new millennium:

year Residents source
1950 321 073 census
1976 654 713 census
1992 713 378 census
2001 789 585 census
2012 757 184 census

La Paz is the third largest city in Bolivia, after the megacity Santa Cruz (1,453,549 inhabitants) in the lowlands and the neighboring city of El Alto (848,840 inhabitants).

The La Paz agglomeration has an estimated two million inhabitants, called Paceños or Paceñas, and includes the cities of El Alto , Viacha and Achocalla , among others .

Attractions

Building of the Banco Central de Bolivia in La Paz

Buildings

Valle de la Luna near La Paz

The tallest building in La Paz and in all of Bolivia was the building of the Bolivian central bank Banco Central de Bolivia at 107.30 m , meanwhile the extended seat of government, inaugurated in August 2019, is the tallest building at 120 m.

The largest bridge in La Paz is the Puente de las Americas . At the end of 2010, the triple bridges Puentes Trillizos were opened.

Museums

  • The Museo Casa de Murillo is one of the largest and most famous museums in Bolivia with over six thousand exhibits.
  • The Museo Nacional de Arte , one of the largest museums of its kind in South America, houses a collection of art treasures from Bolivia, including sculptures, clothing and costumes, precious porcelain and glass vessels, pieces of furniture and musical instruments. Many works by the most famous painters in Bolivia, u. a. Melchor Pérez de Holguín , can be found in the baroque building.
  • The Coca Museum is the world's largest Coca Museum. Among other things, it describes the history of coca from its beginnings as part of ritual rites to its use in modern medicine.
  • The Museo Nacional de Arqueología de Bolivia is a national archaeological museum .

What to see near La Paz

Nearby attractions are the Valle de la Luna ( German: Mondtal) in the south of the city, the ruins of Tiahuanaco and Lake Titicaca . In addition, the Chacaltaya (5421 m) can be visited, on which the (now closed) highest ski slope in the world is located. The Alto Irpavi Velodrome , the highest cycling oval in the world (3408 m), is located near La Paz .

Culture

Compared to other Bolivian cities, La Paz has a rich cultural offering. There are concerts, readings, theater and other performances almost every day. Folklore occupies a particularly important place: Bolivian dances can be seen not only in the numerous folklore parades, but also regularly in the Teatro Municipal or in the Casa de la Cultura.

theatre

La Paz has one of the richest theater scenes in Bolivia. The Bolivian theater takes on an educational and socio-political function, which is represented by a broad spectrum of contemporary playwrights.

media

La Paz is the publishing house for large national daily newspapers in Spanish such as El Diario , La Prensa, the international newspaper La Razón and others. a. Some English-language newspapers are also published here.

education

In addition to the state Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) founded in 1830, there are a number of private universities in La Paz, such as the Universidad Católica Boliviana San Pablo , the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar or the Universidad del Valle .

measure up

There is an annual international book fair in La Paz, where regional and international exponents present their books.

traffic

Long-distance transport

La Paz has a bus station in the north of the city center and is connected to the rest of the country by roads to the Yungas in the north and Oruro in the south . The previously existing railway connection to El Alto (with a connection to the lines to Chile and in the south of the country to Oruro and Uyuni ) was shut down at the end of the 1990s. La Paz has an international and domestic airport. The international airport called Aeropuerto Internacional El Alto Airport La Paz is located in the neighboring town of El Alto , about 50 to 60 minutes from the Zona Sur.

Local transport

Due to the topography, there are only a few broad and flat main roads in the urban area on which vehicle traffic is concentrated. Traffic conditions are often chaotic, especially in the city center, which cannot be avoided.

Local public transport mainly consists of minibuses (max. 35 euro cents) and shared taxis ("Trufis", max. 50 euro cents). So there are more than 200 different routes that cover every area of ​​the city. The buses and taxis stop at no fixed stops when waving or shouting, which leads to considerable traffic obstructions, especially on the heavily used main roads in the center. Attempts by the city administration to stipulate mandatory stops in the center have so far been unsuccessful.

Many radio taxis (vehicles equipped with radio devices that can be ordered by phone, but also waved over on the street) shape the traffic. The fares of the radio taxis are higher than those of the normal taxis without radio (which can only be waved in), but are considered very safe because the drivers earn a flat rate and are therefore not forced to drive quickly to handle as many passengers as possible. You can get anywhere in the city for less than four euros. For safety reasons, at night you should only drive with radio taxis that you have ordered by telephone.

Cable car over La Paz

In order to improve traffic conditions, the construction of an elevated railway (“Tren elevado”) was only discussed at the political level . This would have led from the city center to the suburbs of the Zona Sur, and later extended from the center to El Alto. Due to the special topography with large differences in altitude, underground rivers and deep valleys within the city, the project was discarded.

Cable car

The Mi Teleférico cable car network is an important pillar of urban traffic in La Paz. In the summer of 2012, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced the construction of three cable car lines, which were then implemented by December 2014. During the announcement phase, critics complained that, in the best case, they could only absorb around six percent (18,000 people / hour on all 3 lines; 17 hours of operation / day) of the daily traffic in La Paz; The aim was to achieve a fare below that of the minibuses / Trufis (shared car taxis).

On September 10, 2012, a contract was signed between the Austrian company Doppelmayr and the Bolivian government. The contract included investments of $ 234.6 million to build three lines:

  • Ciudad Satélite (El Alto) to San Jorge (casa presidencial, La Paz); Route length 3908 meters
  • San Jorge (casa precidencial, La Paz) to La Florida, Parque las Cholas (Zona Sur, LaPaz); Route length 4701 meters
  • Panorámico Norte (El Alto) to Escuela Naval (La Paz); Route length 2735 meters

After a construction period of less than 18 months, the first of the three lines with a route length of 2664 meters was opened on May 30, 2014 in the presence of President Evo Morales , the cabins are in operation 17 hours a day, 360 days a year, and can Transport up to 18,000 people per hour. All three lines (red, yellow and green) with eleven stations have been in operation since December 2014, and by the end of 2018 the network was expanded to a total of eight lines and 155 stations and a total length of over 27 km, the transport performance per hour increased to 26,000 people. The major project with a total of eleven lines is to be completed in 2020 with the silver, gold and brown lines with an additional transport capacity of 8,000 people.

Sports

The seat of government largely dominates the country's sports operations, particularly in football and tennis. The city is home to the two most successful football clubs in Bolivia, Club Bolívar (founded in 1925) and The Strongest La Paz (founded in 1908). The derby between the two clubs is called Superclásico. Most football matches are played at the Estadio Hernando Siles .

sons and daughters of the town

Town twinning

La Paz maintains the following cities partnerships :

La Paz has been part of the Association of Ibero-American Capitals (UCCI) since October 12, 1982 and has been a member of the Mercociudades network since 1999 , which 213 cities from Mercosur countries had already joined in 2010 .

Web links

Commons : La Paz  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: La Paz  - explanations of meanings, origins of words, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Mercer's 2018 Quality of Living Rankings. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  2. Demographic Yearbook 1955, page 189
  3. Thomas Brinkhoff: City Population
  4. ^ INE - Instituto Nacional de Estadística Bolivia 1992
  5. Instituto Nacional de Estadística Bolivia (INE) 2001
  6. ^ INE - Instituto Nacional de Estadística Bolivia 2012 ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  7. Dan Collyns: Bolivian president's new residence is as imposing as it is divisive . In: The Guardian . August 16, 2018, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed March 25, 2019]).
  8. La Paz, ¿antes y después del teleférico? (Spanish) ( Memento from March 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  9. Bolivia: Urban Doppelmayr cable car network opened in: Die Presse, May 30, 2014
  10. Bolivia Inaugurates World's Highest Cable Railway in: International Business Times, May 30, 2014 ( English )
  11. Bolivia remains golden ground for Doppelmayr In: Kurier, March 6, 2015
  12. Asociation de Agencias de Turismo del Cusco: Ciudades hermanas