Cotagaita is a small town in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

. In 2009 it had an estimated population of 1904.World Gazetteer
/ref> Cotagaita (also: ''Santiago de Cotagaita'') is a country town in the Potosí Department in

. The village was founded in 1570.

Location

Cotagaita is central to the municipality of Cotagaita and capital of the province of Nor Chichas. Cotagaita lies at an altitude of 2640 meters on the Río Cotagaita, an inflow of the

Rio Pilcomayo Pilcomayo (in Hispanicized spelling) (Quechua Pillkumayu or Pillku Mayu, ''pillku'' red, ''mayu'' river, "red river", Guarani Ysyry Araguay ) is a river in central South America. At long, it is the longest western tributary of the Paraguay River ...

Geography

Cotagaita is located in the southern part of the barren plateau of the Bolivian

Altiplano The Altiplano (Spanish for "high plain"), Collao (Quechua and Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extensive high plateau on Earth outside Tibet. The plateau is located at the ...

. The climate is cool and dry due to the inland location and is characterized by a typical daytime climate, in which the temperature fluctuations between day and night are usually significantly larger than the seasonal fluctuations. The average annual temperature is 15°C and varies only slightly between 11° C in June / July and 18° C in December and January. The annual rainfall is only about 300 mm, with a strong dry season from April to October with monthly rainfall below 10 mm, and a wet season from December to February with 70-80 mm monthly rainfall.

Transport network

Cotagaita is 240 kilometers south of

Potosí Potosí, known as Villa Imperial de Potosí in the colonial period, is the capital city and a municipality of the Department of Potosí in Bolivia. It is one of the highest cities in the world at a nominal . For centuries, it was the location o ...

, the capital of the

Potosí Department Potosí (; Aymara language, Aymara: ''Putusi''; qu, P'utuqsi) is a Departments of Bolivia, department in southwestern Bolivia. It comprises 118,218 km2 with 823,517 inhabitants (2012 census). The capital is the city of Potosí. It is most ...

. From Potosí, the road Route 1, which leads from

Lake Titicaca Lake Titicaca (; es, Lago Titicaca ; qu, Titiqaqa Qucha) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. By volume of water and by surface area, ...

in a southeasterly direction to the Argentine border, leads over 37 kilometers to Cuchu Ingenio . From there, Route 7 branches off to the south and reaches Vitoti and Tumusla after 203 kilometers to Cotagaita. The city of

Tupiza Tupiza is a city in Potosí Department, Bolivia. It is located at an elevation of about 2850 m. The population is 25,709 (2012 estimate). Tupiza and its environs are characterized by dramatic red escarpments which jut ruggedly skyward from the coa ...

is about 83 kilometers further south . There are no paved traffic routes in the east-west direction.

Population

The population of the village has increased by almost half in the past two decades: The population of the region is mostly made up of the

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, a Native South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language **So ...

people, 96.1 percent of the inhabitants in the municipality of Cotagaita speak the Quechua language.

Natural disasters

On February 6, 2020, heavy rainfall in the region resulted in catastrophic

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrolog ...

from the river of the same name. Several hundred houses were destroyed and around a third of the population was affected.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Potosí Department