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Potosí Church |
The fate of Potosí, a small town perched 4,000 meters high in the Andes, changed dramatically starting in the 1540s with the intense exploitation of its silver mines, the largest in the New World. By the 17th century, Potosí had attracted 160,000 settlers and employed 13,500 Indigenous people under the brutal Mita labor system.
Mining activity only began to decline slowly after Bolivia gained independence in 1825, leaving behind distinctive marks in the city and surrounding areas: the dams controlling the supply of water to power the ore processing mills and the king’s mining system, which is the largest and best-preserved of the 5,000 mines on the plateau and in the valleys.
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Potosí Silver Coin |
The city features Baroque-style buildings infused with Indigenous influences that spread throughout the central Andes region: around twenty churches, opulent villas of the aristocracy contrasting with the impoverished rancherías in the Indigenous neighborhoods, and the Royal Mint, which stamped thousands of tons of silver, making Potosí one of the pillars of the European economy in the 17th and 18th centuries.
For over a decade, UNESCO and the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) have assisted the Bolivian authorities in protecting Potosí. The listing of its sites has been carried out alongside historical research. Potosí was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.