Santiago de Machaca

Santiago de Machaca is a village in the department of La Paz in the South American Andes State of Bolivia.

Location in near space

Santiago de Machaca is the administrative seat of the province José Manuel Pando and central place of the district ( bolivian :: Municipio) Santiago de Machaca. The village lies at an altitude of 3886 m on the right bank of the Río Ingenio, which flows to the Río Desaguadero back and is connected to Lake Titicaca.

Geography

Santiago de Machaca lies sixty kilometers southwest of Lake Titicaca on the Bolivian Altiplano on the eastern edge of the Andes mountain range of the Cordillera Occidental, which rises here to about 5000 m. The region has a semi-arid climate, for regular cultivation of crops is not enough rainfall for more than six months of the year.

The mean annual temperature of the region is around 8 ° C, the annual precipitation is only 300 mm. The region has a pronounced diurnal climate, the monthly average temperatures vary only slightly between 5 ° C from June to July and 10 ° C from November to January. The monthly rainfall range from less than 10 mm in the months of May to October and about 50 mm from December to March.

Traffic

Santiago de Machaca is located 151 kilometers by road from La Paz, the capital of the department of the same name.

From La Paz the highway Ruta 19 runs in a southwesterly direction 35 miles to Viacha, from there the Ruta 43 through San Andrés de Machaca to Santiago de Machaca and further to the south-west to the Peruvian border.

Population

The population of the town has risen in the past two decades by about 65%. It amounted to 616 inhabitants at the 1992 census, then 819 inhabitants at the 2001 census and now 1,012 inhabitants ( 2009 estimate ). Due to the historically evolved population distribution, the region has a high proportion of Aymara population in the municipality of Santiago de Machaca 89.5 percent of the population speak the Aymara language.