Basics Population: 8,328,700 Area: 1,098,580 sq km Currency: Boliviano Capital city: Sucre History It's possible that civilisations were around in Bolivia over 21,000 years ago. Between the 13th and 15th centuries the Aymara kingdoms dominated the area. Under their system groups owned and worked on the land together. In the 15th century the Incas arrived in Bolivia and conquered the Aymara. They respected the culture of the people they controlled although they did force them to do some work for the government. The Spanish arrived at the start of the 16th Century and set about making themselves richer. They forced people to work, including in the mines, and then they took the riches back to Spain. They didn't allow people to follow their customs and were generally very cruel. Loads of Indians died of diseases like chickenpox that the Spanish brought with them, or from overwork. In 1825 the independence leader Simon Bolivar managed to beat the Spanish. A new country was formed and named after him - Bolivia. However all was not yet well and Bolivia lost lots of land during fights with its neighbours. Within Bolivia different groups gained and lost power many times over, and for much of the 19 and 20th century the military were in control. The democratic government that took over in 1982 were left with a bit of a mess. Over the last few years Bolivia has been forced to change its economy in order to start paying back some of its huge debts. Many of these changes have left poor people even worse off than they were before.