60 free Bolivia trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bolivia is the country with two capitals, a navy despite having no coast, the highest big city on Earth and a salt flat so large and flat that satellites use it to calibrate their altimeters. Its silver mountain financed the Spanish Empire, Che Guevara died in one of its villages, Butch Cassidy probably did too, and its first indigenous president grew coca for a living before taking office. This quiz spans geography (Titicaca, Uyuni, Sajama, the Yungas death road), history (Tiwanaku, Potosí, the wars that cost Bolivia its coast and its Chaco, the 1952 revolution, Morales and after), symbols and culture (the tricolour and the Wiphala, the Diablada, Alasitas and Ekeko, cholita wrestling), food (salteñas, chuño) and sport (the 6-1 over Argentina at altitude). Questions run from easy to expert. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and other reference pages before publishing.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Bolivia has two capitals. Which one is the constitutional capital and seat of the judiciary?
Sucre
The executive and legislature sit in La Paz; the 2009 constitution names only Sucre as capital.
Q 02At roughly 3,650 m above sea level, La Paz holds what global distinction?
Highest administrative capital on Earth
Its neighbour El Alto, at about 4,000 m, is even higher.
Q 03Which is the largest city in Bolivia, located in the eastern tropical lowlands?
Santa Cruz de la Sierra
It produces about 35% of national GDP and pulls in over 40% of foreign investment.
Q 04Bolivia is named after which independence hero?
Simón Bolívar
A congressman argued: "If from Romulus, Rome, then from Bolívar, Bolivia"; the name was approved in October 1825.
Q 05Salar de Uyuni in southwestern Bolivia is the world's largest what?
Salt flat
After rain it becomes a mirror 129 km across; its brine holds a huge share of the world's lithium.
Q 06Salar de Uyuni's exceptional flatness makes it useful for what unusual scientific purpose?
Calibrating satellite altimeters
Its elevation varies by less than a metre across more than 10,000 square kilometres.
Q 07Titicaca, shared by Bolivia and Peru, is often described as the world's highest what?
Navigable lake
It sits at 3,812 m and is also South America's largest lake by both area and volume.
Q 08In Inca religion, which god was believed to have been born on Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca?
The sun god
The first Inca, Manco Cápac, was said to have emerged from a sandstone crag on the island.
Q 09Cerro Rico, the mountain above Potosí, was for centuries the world's greatest source of which metal?
Silver
From the 16th to 18th centuries about 80% of the world's supply came from it, and Potosí was briefly the second-largest city on Earth.
Q 10Around 1600, Potosí was the second-largest city in the world after which city?
London
Cervantes immortalised the phrase "vale un Potosí", to be worth a fortune.
Q 11Bolivia lost its coastline to Chile in which conflict of 1879-1884?
The War of the Pacific
It began over a nitrate tax dispute; Bolivia still keeps a navy on Lake Titicaca and its rivers.
Q 12Despite being landlocked, Bolivia maintains what branch of its armed forces?
A navy
The Fuerza Naval Boliviana had about 5,000 personnel in 2008 and patrols Titicaca and the rivers.
Q 13Bolivia's naval ensign has a large yellow star representing what?
The nation's right to access the sea
Q 21The Wiphala, Bolivia's second national flag since 2009, is what shape and pattern?
A square patchwork of 49 coloured squares
Its seven colours run diagonally; it represents the native peoples of the Andes.
Q 22Bolivia's tricolour flag has which three horizontal bands, top to bottom?
Red, yellow, green
It dates from 1851; the state version adds the coat of arms in the centre.
Q 23Bolivia's Yungas Road, once the world's most dangerous, was cut in the 1930s largely by whom?
Paraguayan prisoners of war
Nine smaller stars stand for the nine departments.
Q 14Bolivia lost the 1932-35 Chaco War over land thought to contain what?
Oil
The victors took three-quarters of the Gran Chaco; about 2% of Bolivia's population died.
Q 15Which revolutionary was captured and executed by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces on 9 October 1967?
Che Guevara
President René Barrientos ordered him shot in a schoolhouse in La Higuera to avoid a trial.
Q 16Which two American outlaws are believed to have died in a shootout with the Bolivian Army in 1908?
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
They had fled to Argentina and then Bolivia; the exact circumstances of their deaths remain unclear.
Q 17Evo Morales, who led Bolivia from 2006 to 2019, was the country's first what?
Indigenous president
An Aymara former coca-growers' union leader, he oversaw GDP quadrupling before resigning amid the disputed 2019 election.
Q 18Before politics, Evo Morales was a trade-union leader of farmers growing which crop in the Chapare?
Coca
Bolivia is the world's third-largest coca cultivator; chewing the leaf is a millennia-old Andean tradition.
Q 19Bolivia's 2009 constitution changed the country's official name to the ... of Bolivia?
Plurinational State
It recognised 36 indigenous languages alongside Spanish and made the Wiphala a national symbol.
Q 20How many indigenous languages have official status in Bolivia alongside Spanish?
36
Quechua and Aymara are by far the most spoken; Guaraní is third.
Until the mid-1990s it killed 200-300 people a year; uniquely in Bolivia, traffic drove on the left.
Q 24Why did traffic on the Yungas "Death Road" drive on the left, unlike the rest of Bolivia?
So drivers could judge the distance to the cliff edge
Falls from the 3.7 m wide track could be 600 m; at least 18 cyclists have died there since 1998.
Q 25Which pre-Columbian civilisation near Lake Titicaca collapsed around AD 1000?
Tiwanaku
Its ruins include the Akapana pyramid and Puma Punku; the modern Aymara claim it as their heritage.
Q 26Nevado Sajama, Bolivia's highest peak at 6,542 m, is what kind of mountain?
An extinct volcano
Polylepis trees grow on its slopes up to 5,000 m, among the highest forests on Earth.
Q 27Which triple-peaked mountain over 6,400 m towers over La Paz as the city's guardian spirit?
Illimani
Eastern Air Lines Flight 980 crashed into it in 1985.
Q 28La Paz and El Alto are linked by Mi Teleférico, which holds what world record?
Longest aerial cable-car system
Opened in 2014, it was the first city to use cable cars as the backbone of its transit network.
Q 29El Alto, adjacent to La Paz, is what?
The highest major city in the world, at about 4,000 m
It grew from a 1903 railway settlement into a sprawling metropolis of mostly Aymara migrants.
Q 30Bolivia's Oruro Carnival was among the first 19 items proclaimed by UNESCO in 2001 as what?
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage
Its famous Diablada devil dances honour the Virgin of the Mineshaft.