It’s cold here, under 40 at night despite being in the tropics, due to the altitude. Image by Noah Friedman-Rudovsky. «Puno/San Román/Juliaca», "4: Población Estimada y Proyectada por Departamento y Provincia, 2000-2015", "Censo General 2005 – Zipaquirá, Cundinamarca", "Censo General 2005 – Chía, Cundinamarca", "Censo General 2005 – Facatativá, Cundinamarca", "Censo General 2005 – Soacha, Cundinamarca", "Resultados Nacionales Censo de Población y Vivienda 2010", http://www.citypopulation.de/Chile-Cities.html, http://www.citypopulation.de/php/usa-metro.php, "Censo General 2005 – Rionegro, Antioquia", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_highest_large_cities&oldid=981193480, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 30 September 2020, at 20:56. When the rainy season arrives in December, everything sweeps toward the lake. The city, which used to be a suburb of La Paz, has now grown into the capital. It was part of a string of similar cases by a gang which has apparently commited 69 such murders. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The La Paz metropolitan area, which includes Viacha and El Alto, is Bolivia's largest urban area and home to about 2.3 million people. El Alto was the mainstay of the movement that sought to "recuperate gas for the Bolivians". One thing that strikes me is how people need to rely on themselves and their families for just about everything because these systems are just not there as a safety net. Kids are running around happily through the dirt/gravel streets playing. I want to see them cleaner with more plants,” she said. El Alto is een van de hoogst gelegen steden van de wereld en bevindt zich op zo`n 4150 meter boven zeeniveau. De betoging was een initiatief van een groep vaders voor beter onderwijs. I learned later that this protest was about the lack of security provided in El Alto by the city government, specifically regarding a recent case where two local journalists who broadcast in Aymara language (brother and sister) were strangled by a gang who disguised themselves as minibus operators and lured passengers in before dawn to rob them. You really see what rural-to-urban migration is about. The maintenance of ties with rural communities has allowed the inhabitants of El Alto to survive during periods of political conflict and move to establish a virtual blockade of La Paz, which rests in a circular valley below El Alto. One investment the government has already started is a soccer stadium which, like everything else in El Alto, is under construction. The people here are hesitant to talk about water contamination because if suspicion were ever cast on the health of their livestock it could destroy their livelihoods. Bolivia is a landlocked country in South America officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia. To be clear, to have no heat in El Alto is a big deal. As the journalist Rafael Archondo says, these urban Indians have little to do with the postcard images of cultural archaeology which "freeze them in time", and are true social and political actors of the 21st century. But the cash to create that infrastructure has not been forthcoming from national or local governments since serious pollution became apparent about 10 years ago. For the rural campesinos who migrate to El Alto from farms and villages on altiplano, El Alto is their urban foothold to set up residence and often start a business. El Alto is the fastest-growing city in Bolivia. Green Left is a vital social-change project and aims to make all content available online, without paywalls. She says that for many households the river is the closest and easiest way to dispose of trash, especially when garbage trucks fail to collect it week after week. La Paz is the third most populous city in the country after Santa Cruz de la Sierra and El Alto. The majority of the population is the Aymaras, which comprise more than 80% of the population. The Bolivia Population (Live) counter shows a continuously updated estimate of the current population of the Plurinational State of Bolivia delivered by Worldometer's RTS algorithm, which processes data collected from the United Nations Population Division.. Aymara citizens congregating after the 27th anniversary parade of El Alto the largest Amerindian city in the world. Evo Morales – the country’s exiled former president – described the events in El Alto as a “massacre”. El Alto — located 4000 metres above sea level and just 12 kilometres from the capital, La Paz — has grown from a shanty-town suburb of La Paz into the country's third largest city, with 700,000 inhabitants, 90% of whom identify themselves as "indigenous" according to government surveys. In a desperately unequal world facing a climate emergency, everyone has to pick a side. According to the World Bank report, the informal sector, “provides jobs and reduces unemployment and underemployment, but in many cases the jobs are low-paid and the job security is poor. As a sign of this, two indigenous leaders coming from peasant organisations — Evo Morales and Felipe Quispe — have become among the most supported candidates in recent parliamentary elections and have formed new movements that enjoy growing support among the population. Along the way it passes straight through one of the fastest-growing cities in South America: El Alto. Problem with the face, go to the United States. ( Log Out /  With shouts of "El Alto on its feet, never on its knees! As Roberto De la Cruz, a union leader from El Alto says, "while the Gringo — as Sanchez de Lozada is known — wanted to sell off the gas, the peasants were cooking with animal shit. Not sure on the soccer stadium but that one looks like it will be finished. INEI, Censos Nacionales 2007: XI de Población y VI de Vivienda (2007). There are several other minority ethnic groups in Bolivia which constitute up to 4% of the Bolivian population. In any case, regardless of the immediate political ups and downs, the idea that the population of El Alto can at any moment "come down" to La Paz seems to be here to stay as a warning to the elite. With no corporate sponsors or advertising, we rely on support and donations from readers like you. ( Log Out /  The rural tradition of territorial self-organisation has led to a pattern of neighbourhood self-government in El Alto, with the local committees dealing with everything from asphalting streets, supervising education and health services, and judging and sentencing petty delinquents to politically mobilising people on national issues such as the gas question. I learned that there are frequent protests by citizens of El Alto (as well as many other regions in Bolivia), and on the second day of the trip I looked out my hotel window and there was a major protest forming in front of the soccer stadium. That's why they reacted.". Many migrants still have rural homes and practice circular migration i.e. These traditions have allowed El Alto's inhabitants to create a new pattern of collective organising in an urban space that is described by most middle-class commentators as "dirty and disordered" or "chaotic". Bolivia is one of Latin America’s poorest countries, and its population of just 10.5 million people, of whom more than 6 million identify as indigenous, has radically shifted from the countryside to cities over the past two decades. El Alto (spaans voor De Hoogte) is een voorstad van La Paz op het Hoogland van Bolivia in het gelijknamige land Bolivia.De stad is gesitueerd langs de rand van de kloof waarin La Paz is gebouwd. The citizens of El Alto also played a big role in the demonstrations against the president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada that made him resign in 2003. http://www.irinnews.org/pdf/in-depth/TomorrowsCrisesToday-Chapter9.pdf. Several hundred yards from the river a man drills a deep well. In the last few weeks, many trade unions and social movements, answering a call by national labour federation leader Jaime Solares, have started protests and blockades against Mesa's government because Mesa's July 18 referendum on the future of the country's hydrocarbon resources will not ask voters if they favour the nationalisation of these resources — the key demand raised in the October rebellion. “I hope we can clean the water and learn not to throw our trash in the rivers. With the rapid growing population El Alto has become city with high poverty. El Alto is to be found more than 4000 meters over sea level. Bolivia, 2011. “The things governments have done so far are like giving an aspirin to someone who has been shot,” said Ribera Arismendi. Only 30% of homes have basic sewage facilities and education, and health facilities are precarious at best. This has led to the formation of a semi-secret "Aymara military organisation", that organises road blocks and other actions that are central to the protest movement. What‘s strange about this is that La Paz in general has had very low crime, but some people think this is changing. Think they will ever finish it? El Alto (“The Heights”), is a suburb of Bolivia’s capital La Paz and is now thought to be the largest Amerindian city in the world.