Catavi

Catavi is a country town in the Potosí Department in the South American Andean highlands of Bolivia.

Location in near space

The mining settlement Catavi is a central place of the Canton Llallagua district ( bolivian: municipality ) in the Province of Llallagua Rafael Bustillo. The city lies at an altitude of 3777 m ten kilometers north of the provincial capital Uncia and 300 kilometers south of the Bolivian capital La Paz

Geography

Catavi is located at the junction of the highlands of Oruro in the mountain of Potosí. The city is bounded on the north and west by high mountain ranges of the Cordillera Central. The vegetation is that of the Puna, the climate is a typical diurnal climate in which the average daily temperature fluctuations are larger than the seasonal variation.

The mean annual temperature is 9 ° C, the monthly average values ​​vary between less than 5 ° C in June / July and 11 ° C from November to March (see climate chart Uncía ). The annual precipitation is 370 mm and falls mainly in the summer months, the arid period with monthly values ​​of maximum 10 mm lasts from April to October.

Traffic network

Catavi lies at a distance of 105 kilometers of road southeast of Oruro, the capital of the department of the same name.

From Oruro the paved highway Ruta 1 leads in a southerly direction 22 kilometers above Vinto after Machacamarquita, eight kilometers north of Machacamarca located. In Machacamarquita the Ruta 6 branches in a southeasterly direction and reaches over Huanuni and over mountain passes of more than 4,500 m by 79 kilometers, the city Llallagua, and from there it is another four miles to Catavi.

From Llallagua from the Ruta 6 performs an additional 98 kilometers above Uncia by Macha. In Macha branches off a dirt road in a southwesterly direction and leads after 33 kilometers at Cruce Culta, former Ventilla, back to the Ruta 1 from here to the capital of the department of Potosí, it is another 109 km.

Economy

The tin mines of Catavi among the largest and richest mineral deposits in the world, since 1987 the mining complex, however, is closed. Today live in Catavi many Mineros who work on their own or in small cooperatives in the old mines in appalling safety conditions, or search the rubble of the huge spoil heaps after Zinnresten.

Population

The population of the town has risen in the past two decades to more than double:

Life expectancy in the municipality of Llallagua is 58.2 years, the literacy rate for those over 15 years is 83 percent.