DESERT OF SALT MAS BIG OF THE WORLD "UYUNI - BOLIVIA"

Uyuni is a city in the southwest of Bolivia. It primarily serves as a gateway for tourists visiting the world's largest salt flats, the nearby Salar de Uyuni.

Founded in 1890 as a trading post, the town has a population of 21,400 (2010 official estimate). The town has an extensive street-market. It lies at the edge of an extensive plain at an elevation of 3,700 m (12,139 ft) above sea level, with more mountainous country to the east.

There is little agriculture in the area because water supplies are scarce and somewhat saline. Today the town's primary function is as a gateway for tourists visiting the world's largest salt flats - the Salar de Uyuni. Each year Uyuni receives approximately 60,000 visitors from around the globe. The city also acts as a gateway for commerce and traffic crossing into and out of Bolivia from and to Chile, and there is a customs and immigration post downtown.

Train cemetery

One of the major tourist attractions of the area is an antique train cemetery. It is located 3 km outside Uyuni and is connected to it by the old train tracks. The town served in the past as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals on their way to the Pacific Ocean ports. The train lines were built by British engineers who arrived near the end of the 19th century and formed a sizable community in Uyuni. The engineers were invited by British-sponsored Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway Companies, which is now Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia. The rail construction started in 1888 and ended in 1892. It was encouraged by the then Bolivian President Aniceto Arce, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transport system, but it was also constantly sabotaged by the local Aymara indigenous Indians who saw it as an intrusion into their lives. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion. Many trains were abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery. There are talks to build a museum out of the cemetery.