La Paz

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Lore & Background

La Paz was founded on 20 October 1548, by the Spanish conquistador Captain Alonso de Mendoza, at the site of the Inca settlement of Laja as a connecting point between the commercial routes that led from Potosí and Oruro to Lima. The full name of the city was originally Nuestra Señora de La Paz (meaning Our Lady of Peace) in commemoration of the restoration of peace following the insurrection of Gonzalo Pizarro and fellow conquistadors against the first Viceroy of Peru. The city was later moved to its present location in the valley of Chuquiago Marka. In 1825, after the decisive victory of the republicans at Ayacucho over the Spanish army, the city's full name was changed to La Paz de Ayacucho. The region was known as Chuquiago Marka in the Aymara language. In 1781, the indigenous leader and independence activist Túpac Katari laid siege to the city for a total of six months, but was finally defeated. On 16 July 1809, the Bolivian patriot Pedro Domingo Murillo ignited a revolution for independence, marking the beginning of the Spanish American Wars of Independence. Pedro Domingo Murillo was hanged at the Plaza de los Españoles on 29 January 1810.

Reader's Guide

As the seat of the government of Bolivia, La Paz is the site of the Palacio Quemado, the presidential palace. It is also the seat of the Bolivian legislature, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, and numerous government departments and agencies. The constitutional capital of Bolivia, Sucre, retains the judicial power. The city hosts all the foreign embassies as well as international missions in the country. La Paz generates 24% of the nation's gross domestic product and serves as the headquarters for numerous Bolivian companies and industries. La Paz is also an important cultural center, hosting several landmarks dating from colonial times, such as the San Francisco Church, the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Plaza Murillo and Jaén Street. The city is renowned for its markets, particularly the Witches' Market, and for its nightlife. La Paz is home to the largest urban cable car network in the world. Due to its altitude, the city has an unusual subtropical highland climate, with rainy summers and dry winters.

Did You Know?

• La Paz is the highest administrative capital city in the world, at an elevation of roughly 3,650 m (11,975 ft) above sea level.
• The city was originally named Nuestra Señora de La Paz to commemorate the restoration of peace after the insurrection of Gonzalo Pizarro against the first Viceroy of Peru.
• In 1781, the indigenous leader Túpac Katari laid siege to La Paz for a total of six months.
• La Paz generates 24% of Bolivia's gross domestic product.
• The city is home to the largest urban cable car network in the world.

Perched in the Altiplano

Set in a bowl-shaped depression carved by the Choqueyapu River, La Paz occupies one of the most dramatic urban landscapes on Earth. Nestled in west-central Bolivia, roughly 68 kilometers southeast of Lake Titicaca, the city sits within the broader Amazon basin yet is ringed by the towering peaks of the Altiplano. The triple-peaked Illimani, perpetually draped in snow, looms over the skyline and is visible from countless vantage points throughout the urban sprawl. At approximately 3,650 meters above sea level, La Paz holds the distinction of being the highest administrative capital in the world. This extraordinary altitude shapes a climate that defies simple categorization: a subtropical highland pattern brings warm, rainy summers and cool, dry winters, a rhythm that feels almost tropical despite the thin mountain air. The city's topography also grants residents and visitors sweeping panoramas of the Cordillera Real from numerous natural overlooks, making the surrounding mountains an ever-present backdrop to daily life in the canyon below.

A City Born of Peace and Gold

In the autumn of 1548, Captain Alonso de Mendoza staked out a new Spanish settlement at the site of the Inca village of Laja, choosing a location linking the commercial corridors between Potosí, Oruro, and Lima. The city was christened Nuestra Señora de La Paz—Our Lady of Peace—in memory of the restoration of order after the insurrection of Gonzalo Pizarro and his fellow conquistadors against Blasco Núñez Vela, the first Viceroy of Peru. Within days, the site was shifted to the more temperate valley known in Aymara as Chuquiago Marka, a name evoking a gold farm tied to nuggets once panned from local streams. The following year, Juan Gutierrez Paniagua was tasked with drafting an urban plan allocating space for plazas, civic buildings, and a cathedral, encoding the hierarchical ideals of Spanish colonial society into the grid. The Plaza de los Españoles, today called Plaza Murillo, was designated as the heart of government and religion. Under the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, the city grew as a colonial administrative node, with Juan de Vargas as its first mayor and Pedro de la Gasca overseeing territorial arrangements on behalf of Emperor Charles V.

Sieges and the Spark of Freedom

From its earliest days, La Paz has been a crucible of resistance. In 1781, the Aymara leader Túpac Katari rallied indigenous forces to lay siege to the city for six grueling months, during which churches and government buildings were razed before the rebels were finally defeated. Roughly three decades later, another two-month siege by indigenous forces became the setting for the origin of the Ekeko legend. Then, on 16 July 1809, the patriot Pedro Domingo Murillo declared that the Bolivian revolution was igniting a lamp that no one would ever be able to extinguish. That uprising formally marked the opening of the Spanish American Wars of Independence, a sweeping conflict that would secure the freedom of South American states by 1821. In 1825, following the decisive republican victory at Ayacucho over the Spanish army, the city's full name was changed to La Paz de Ayacucho, embedding the hard-won peace of that battlefield into its very identity. The thread of defiance running through those centuries of revolt ultimately wove itself into the fabric of a sovereign nation.

The Engine of a Nation

Today, La Paz functions as the operational nerve center of Bolivia. The Palacio Quemado houses the presidency, while the Plurinational Legislative Assembly convenes in the city alongside numerous government departments and agencies. All foreign embassies and international missions maintain their Bolivian postings here, even though the constitutional capital, Sucre, retains the nation's judicial authority. Economically, the city generates roughly a quarter of the country's gross domestic product and serves as headquarters for a wide array of Bolivian companies and industries. Culturally, La Paz sits at the confluence of the Tiwanaku and Inca archaeological worlds, and its colonial-era landmarks—the San Francisco Church, the Metropolitan Cathedral, Plaza Murillo, and the bustling Jaén Street—anchor a rich heritage. The city is also renowned for its vibrant markets, particularly the Witches' Market, and its lively nightlife. Perhaps most strikingly, La Paz operates the largest urban cable car network in the world, threading lines across its dramatic canyon topography to link communities separated by sheer elevation.