The highest city in the world that built the Spanish Empire — silver mines that funded 200 years of European history, a UNESCO Baroque city at 4,090m, and llama meat stew
Potosí sits at 4,090 metres above sea level on the flanks of the Cerro Rico — 'the mountain that eats men' — in the Bolivian altiplano. For 200 years (1545–1750), it was effectively the economic engine of the Spanish Empire: the Cerro Rico produced an estimated 60% of the world's silver during the colonial period, funding everything from the Spanish Armada to Baroque churches in Seville. The city was, at its peak in 1650, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere — larger than London, Madrid, or Rome — with a population of 160,000. The colonial city is a UNESCO World Heritage site: the Baroq…
The silver deposits of Cerro Rico were discovered in 1545 and production began almost immediately at an industrial scale. The Spanish Crown required all silver mined in Bolivia to pass through the Casa de la Moneda (Royal Mint) — the current building, completed 1773, is the largest colonial building in South America. Approximately 8 million enslaved indigenous workers (mita system — forced labour) and enslaved Africans died in the Potosí mines between 1545 and 1825, earning the mountain its Quechua name 'Sumaq Orcko' ('beautiful mountain') and its Spanish nickname 'the mountain that eats men.…