Chuquisaca Department
| Department of Chuquisaca | ||
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Laguna de Culpina
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 Location within Bolivia |
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| Country |
 Bolivia
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| Capital | Sucre | |
| Government | ||
| • Governor | Esteban Urquizu Cuéllar | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 51,524 km2 (19,894 sq mi) | |
| Population (2012) | ||
| • Total | 576,153 | |
| • Density | 11/km2 (29/sq mi) | |
| Time zone | BOT (UTC-4) | |
| HDI (2004) | - | |
| ISO 3166-2 | BO-H | |
| Website | www |
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Chuquisaca is a department of Bolivia located in the center south. It borders on the departments of Cochabamba, Tarija, Potosí, and Santa Cruz. The departmental capital is Sucre, which is also the constitutional capital of Bolivia.
The department is traversed by the main cordillera of the Andes mountain range and lesser cordilleras. Parts of it lie within the basin of the Amazon River, and other parts within the basin of the Río de La Plata. The surface area of the department is 51,524 square kilometers. The topography of central Chuquisaca consists of a series of ridges rising up to 1500 m that run north and south with flat valleys between the ridges. To the east of these ridges abruptly rise the Andes Mountains to 3000 m forming a prepuna landmass that is cut into by large river valleys that drain into the Amazon or Rio de la Plata river basins. To the west of the central ridges lies a stretch of territory containing low altitude flat Chaco topography. 90% of the land in the department of Chuquisaca has an inclination of 70% or more.
Ecological and vegetation zones in the department of Chuquisaca vary widely according to a diversity of abiotic factors including soil formation and textures, rainfall patterns, and mineral and salinity content of water. Altitude plays an important role in the dispersion of vegetation species and wider ecosystems as they respond to microclimates. As the Andes Mountains became uplifted, plants adapted to dryer and higher microclimates resulting in a high level of speciation especially in the dry forest river valleys of the Bolivian-Tucuman formation. Colder and dryer air from more austral parts of South America have resulted in migration of plant communities with a floristic connection to those in Argentina, Paraguay and Southern Brazil as opposed to more tropical plant communities that result from warm and moist northern climates. Navarro and Ferreira have developed a database of plant species in Bolivia and identified 39 separate vegetation zones in Bolivia within twelve general physiographic-biogeographical units of which four fall in the boundaries of Chuquisaca Department including: Cordillera Oriental Central y Meridional, Prepuna or High Interandean Valleys, Bolivian-Tucuman Formation, and Chaco. Using Navarro and Ferreira’s categories and descriptions based on vegetation zones, the geographical and ecological characteristics of the Chuquisaca Department can be described as follows.
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Wikipedia