Bolivia's Carnival Capital — the Altiplano mining city where the world's most spectacular pre-Lenten Carnival (UNESCO Masterpiece) draws 400,000 people to watch the Diablada, the Dance of the Devils, on the high plateau at 3,700 metres
Oruro is a Bolivian mining city on the Altiplano at 3,700 metres elevation — the economic capital of Bolivia's silver and tin mining history, and the home of what UNESCO has called one of the world's greatest intangible cultural heritage traditions: the Oruro Carnival. The city itself is largely functional and unbeautiful (the mining economy has declined sharply since the 1980s collapse of tin prices), but the Carnival transforms it entirely for four days each February: 28,000 performers in 48 dance groups parade for 20 hours along a 4 km route in an explosion of elaborate masks, embroidered…
The area around Oruro was inhabited by Uru and Inca peoples before Spanish conquest; the Spanish established Real Villa de San Felipe de Austria in 1606 after discovering silver deposits. By 1650 the city had a population of 70,000, making it one of the largest cities in the Americas — a boom built entirely on silver mining. The mines contracted through the 18th and 19th centuries but revived in the late 19th century with the discovery of tin, making Oruro the centre of Bolivia's tin mining industry. The 'tin barons' — particularly Simón Patiño, one of the wealthiest men in the world in the 1…