Bolivia covers 1,098,581 km² (424,164 sq mi), making it the 27th-largest country in the world, the fifth-largest in South America and the largest landlocked country in the Southern Hemisphere. That is almost exactly the size of Ethiopia, about 1.7 times the size of France and a little smaller than Texas and California combined. Yet only 11,312,620 people were counted in the 2024 census, about 10 per km², and the country is far smaller than it was at independence in 1825: wars and treaties since 1879 have cost it its Pacific coast and large parts of the Amazon and the Chaco.
27th in the World, Fifth in South America
In the UN-based ranking of countries by total area, Bolivia sits in a cluster of similar-sized states: Colombia (1,138,910 km²) is 25th, Ethiopia (1,104,300 km²) is 26th, Bolivia is 27th, and Mauritania (1,030,700 km²) and Egypt (1,001,450 km²) follow. The gap to Ethiopia is under 6,000 km², less than a sixth of Tarija, Bolivia's smallest department. Some sources, including part of Wikipedia's own Bolivia article, put it 28th because area tables differ slightly, but the area figure of 1,098,581 km² is the same in both.
In South America only Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Colombia are larger. Bolivia and Paraguay are the continent's two landlocked countries, and Bolivia is more than two and a half times the size of Paraguay. It reaches from 9°38' to 22°53' south and from 57°26' to 69°38' west, a span of about 1,470 km north to south and about 1,300 km east to west. Its geographic centre is Puerto Estrella, on the Río Grande in Santa Cruz Department. The five countries that border Bolivia are Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile and Peru.
Bolivia Beside Peru, Paraguay, Spain and Texas
A few yardsticks make 1.1 million km² easier to grasp:
- Peru (1,285,216 km²), its neighbour on Lake Titicaca, is about 17% larger. Our Peru vs Bolivia comparison sets the two side by side.
- Paraguay (406,752 km²) would fit inside Bolivia about 2.7 times.
- Spain (505,370 km²) fits about 2.2 times, and Germany (357,581 km²) about three times.
- Texas (695,662 km²) fits about 1.6 times. Add California (423,970 km²) and the pair is only about 21,000 km² bigger than Bolivia.
- The United Kingdom (244,376 km²) would fit about 4.5 times.
Nine Departments, From 370,621 km² Santa Cruz to 37,623 km² Tarija
Two of Bolivia's nine departments are country-sized by themselves. Santa Cruz, at 370,621 km², is larger than Germany or Paraguay, and Beni, at 213,564 km², is not far short of the United Kingdom. The smallest department, Tarija, still covers 37,623 km², more than Belgium (30,528 km²).
Between those extremes come La Paz (133,985 km²), Potosí (118,218 km²), Pando (63,827 km²), Cochabamba (55,631 km²), Oruro (53,588 km²) and Chuquisaca (51,524 km²). The three lowland departments of Santa Cruz, Beni and Pando together cover about 648,000 km², close to 60% of the country, which matches almost exactly the share of Bolivia that lies in the eastern plains.
Altiplano, Yungas and Llanos: How the Area Is Split by Height
Bolivia's size is easiest to understand as three stacked landscapes. The Andean region in the south-west covers about 28% of the country, 307,603 km², nearly all of it above 3,000 m. It lies between the Cordillera Occidental and the Cordillera Central and includes Nevado Sajama, the highest peak at 6,542 m, and Illimani at 6,462 m above La Paz. The Altiplano also holds two of the largest features of their kind: Lake Titicaca, 8,372 km² at 3,812 m, shared with Peru, and the Salar de Uyuni in the south-west, the world's largest salt flat at about 10,582 km². Our guide to the geography of Lake Titicaca explains how the lake sits on the border.
The Sub-Andean region, about 13% of the territory or 142,815 km², takes in the temperate valleys around Cochabamba and Sucre and the steep, forested Yungas. The remaining 59%, some 648,163 km², is the Llanos: lowland plains that stretch north and east into the Amazon basin, south into the Gran Chaco and east to the Pantanal on the Paraguay River. The lowlands hold some of the country's largest protected areas, among them Noel Kempff Mercado National Park near the Brazilian border and Madidi National Park, where the Andes drop into the Amazon. Bolivia counts four biomes, 32 ecological regions and 199 ecosystems, a range made possible by its size and its altitude span. From the summit of Sajama to the lowest ground, nearly 70 m above sea level along the Paraguay River, Bolivia has a vertical range of more than 6,400 m.
This split shapes how large the country feels. The lowlands make up most of the map, but for centuries most Bolivians lived on the high plateau. Potosí, founded in 1545 below the silver mountain of Cerro Rico at a nominal 4,067 m, once had a population of more than 150,000, which made it the largest city in the Americas.
About 10 People per km²: Density and the 2024 Census
With 11,312,620 people counted in 2024, Bolivia has about 10.3 inhabitants per km². For comparison, Paraguay has about 15 per km², Peru about 23 and Colombia about 46. Ethiopia, almost the same size, had an estimated 139 million people in 2025, more than twelve times Bolivia's population on practically the same area.
The population has more than quadrupled since 1950, but the land has stayed the same, so density has risen from about 2.5 to about 10 people per km². The distribution within the country is very uneven. In the 2024 census, Cochabamba Department had about 36 people per km² and La Paz about 23, while Beni and Pando, in the Amazon lowlands, each had only about 2. Santa Cruz is now the most populous department, with 3.1 million people, yet because it is so large its density is only about 8 per km². The shift of people from the highlands to the eastern lowlands around Santa Cruz de la Sierra is one of the main changes in modern Bolivia.
Smaller Than It Was: The Pacific Coast Lost in 1879
Bolivia's present area is the result of a long series of territorial losses. Since independence, by the usual reckoning, the country has lost over half of its territory to its neighbours.
The best-known loss is the coast. At independence in 1825, Bolivia controlled part of the Atacama Desert, organised as the Litoral Department, with ports at Cobija, Mejillones, Tocopilla and Antofagasta. During the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) Chile occupied the whole coastline along with its nitrate fields. The Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 20 October 1904 fixed the new frontier, which today runs for about 942 km along the Cordillera Occidental on the western edge of the Altiplano. Bolivia took a case to the International Court of Justice, which ruled in 2018 that Chile had no obligation to negotiate sovereign access to the Pacific.
Acre, the Purus and the Chaco: Losses in the Lowlands
In the Amazon, rubber made distant forests valuable. After the Acre War, the Treaty of Petrópolis of 17 November 1903 gave Brazil the territory of Acre, about 191,000 km², in exchange for just over 3,000 km² of Brazilian land, two million pounds sterling and a promised railway around the Madeira rapids. In 1909, through diplomacy rather than war, Bolivia gave up the basins of the Madre de Dios and Purus rivers to Peru, an area usually given as about 250,000 km².
The last major change came in the Gran Chaco. The Chaco War with Paraguay (1932–1935) was fought over a sparsely populated region of about 600,000 km², partly because control of the Paraguay River offered a route to the Atlantic and partly because of hopes of oil. By the ceasefire of June 1935 Paraguay held most of the disputed area, and the 1938 settlement in Buenos Aires awarded Paraguay the larger part of the Chaco, with Bolivia keeping navigation rights on the Paraguay and Paraná rivers.
The river mattered so much because both countries had become landlocked after the territorial losses of the late 19th century. The 1938 truce was approved in Paraguay by referendum. The railway promised to Bolivia in 1903 had a less happy fate too: the Madeira–Mamoré line, meant to reach Riberalta on the Beni, stopped short at Guajará-Mirim on the Brazilian bank.
What 1,098,581 km² Means for a Landlocked State
Bolivia's size has never made up for its lack of a coast. Its foreign trade travels through ports in neighbouring countries or along river routes: the Acre–Purus–Amazon system to the north and the Paraguay–Paraná system to the south-east, both of which reach the Atlantic. The country still keeps a navy, founded in January 1963 as a River and Lake Force, which operates on Lake Titicaca and the lowland rivers. Sucre is the constitutional capital and La Paz the seat of government, and at roughly 3,650 m La Paz looks out over the Altiplano rather than towards the plains that make up most of the national territory. Travelling from the northern Amazon forests at 9° S to the Argentine border at nearly 23° S means crossing rainforest, savanna, high desert and salt flats, a sequence of landscapes packed into 1.1 million km². To see exactly where that territory sits on the continent, read our guide to where Bolivia is.