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Altiplano
The high plain of the central Andes, second only to Tibet
The Altiplano is a vast high plain cradled within the central Andes, a windswept tableland averaging around 3,750 metres above sea level - the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth outside Tibet. Spanning parts of Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, it is a world of thin cold air, salt flats, and turquoise lakes set between two parallel cordilleras of the Andes. Despite the harsh altitude, it has been home to advanced cultures for thousands of years and remains densely peopled by Andean standards.
The plateau formed as the Andes rose along the subduction of the Nazca plate beneath South America, an internal basin trapped between the eastern and western cordilleras and filled over time with sediment and the deposits of vanished lakes. Its lowest reaches hold Lake Titicaca, the highest large navigable lake in the world, and the dazzling Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat on the planet, the relic of an ancient inland sea. The air is dry and intensely sunlit, with sharp daily swings between warmth and freezing night.
The Altiplano was the cradle of the Tiwanaku civilisation and later a core region of the Inca empire, its peoples - Aymara and Quechua among them - adapted over generations to extreme altitude. Spanish colonists exploited its silver, above all at Potosi, whose mountain of ore financed an empire and consumed countless lives. Today the plateau supports highland farming and herding of llamas and alpacas, mining including the lithium of its salt flats, and cities such as La Paz and El Alto perched among the highest in the world.