Uyuni

Uyuni is a city in the southwest of Bolivia. It is famous because it is the closest city to the world's largest salt flats, called the nearby Salar de Uyuni. Many visitors come here each year to see these amazing salt flats.

The city was started in 1890 as a place for trading. It now has around 29,672 people. Uyuni is high up, about 3,700 meters (12,139 feet) above sea level, with mountains to the east.

Besides tourists, Uyuni helps with trade and travel between Bolivia and Chile. There is a place for customs and immigration in the city center. The land around Uyuni is good for growing quinoa and raising animals like llamas and sheep. The city also has a big street market where people can shop and look around.

Transport

Uyuni is an important place for transportation. It has a major railway junction where four lines meet. These lines come from La Paz through Oruro, from Calama in Chile, from Potosí, and from Villazón near the border with Argentina.

You can also reach the city by road from Oruro to La Paz, Sucre, Villazón (the border with Argentina), and Ollagüe in Chile. There are flights available through the Joya Andina Airport. Two local airlines, Amazonas and Transporte Aéreo Militar, fly in from La Paz, Sucre, and Rurrenabaque.

Tourist attractions

Train cemetery

A popular place to visit near Uyuni is an old train cemetery. It is about 3 kilometers from the city, and you can walk there using old train tracks. Long ago, this town helped send trains full of minerals to ports on the Pacific Ocean. The train lines were built by engineers from Britain in the late 1800s. Building the trains started in 1888 and finished in 1892. The trains were mostly used by mining companies. But when the mining industry fell apart in the 1940s, many trains were left behind, creating the train cemetery. Some people think it would be great to turn this place into a museum.