a town of Bolivia, capital of a department of the same name, stands in a bleak and barren country, on the northern slope of the Cerro de Potosi, S. Lat. 19° 36', W. Long. 65° 20'. It is one of the highest inhabited places in the world, being about 13,500 feet above the sea. On account of the unevenness of the site, the town is irregularly built; the houses are substantial, but not more than one storey high in general. In the middle of the town is a large public square, with an obelisk in honour of Bolivar. Here also stand the large granite cathedral, and the long, low range of government buildings. The town has also numerous churches, a large mint, and a college. The temperature is very hot in the sunshine, but in the shade the cold is extreme. The place is, however, healthy, notwithstanding the difficulty of respiration at such an elevation. The silver mines of Potosi, for which the place is chiefly famous, are described under Bolivia. Those parts of the town that were inhabited by Indians are now almost all in ruins, and the population has dwindled down from 100,000, which it is said, to have contained in the seventeenth century, to 15,000.

The department of Potosi, which is bounded on the N. by that of Oruro, N.E. and E. by the department of Chuquisaca and province of Tarija, S. by La Plata, and W. by the province of Cobija and by Peru, has an area of 37,227 square miles. It is a mountainous table-land, and many of the heights rise above the limits of vegetation. Its chief production is the silver obtained from the mines of Potosi. Pop. 297,000.