Salar de Uyuni - Bolivia
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Torgut
S 20° 18.145 W 066° 56.295
19K E 715290 N 7753708
The Salar de Uyuni is the most popular touristic attraction in Bolivia and an important source of salt
Waymark Code: WM12JNZ
Location: Bolivia
Date Posted: 06/06/2020
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member Torgut
Views: 8

This salar (salt evaporation pond) is huge. It has an extension of 10,582 km². Larger than many countries, like Lebanon or Cape Verde.
It's located close to the border with Chile.

A tour in the salar is the highlight of a trip to Bolivia and many seasoned travelers place this experience as their top moment in their wanders around the world.

The closest town is Uyuni, itself transformed in a touristic town, not due to its charm but to its position close to the salar.


From Wikipedia:
(visit link)
Salar de Uyuni (or Salar de Tunupa)[1] is the world's largest salt flat, or playa, at over 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi) in area.It is in the Daniel Campos Province in Potosí in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes at an elevation of 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) above sea level.

The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average elevation variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. It contains 50% to 70% of the world's known lithium reserves according to a 2009 Foreign Policy article by Joshua Keating. The large area, clear skies, and exceptional flatness of the surface make the Salar ideal for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites. Following rain, a thin layer of dead calm water transforms the flat into the world's largest mirror, 129 kilometres (80 miles) across.

The Salar serves as the major transport route across the Bolivian Altiplano and is a prime breeding ground for several species of flamingos. Salar de Uyuni is also a climatological transitional zone since the towering tropical cumulus congestus and cumulonimbus incus clouds that form in the eastern part of the salt flat during the summer cannot permeate beyond its drier western edges, near the Chilean border and the Atacama Desert.[citation needed]

Salar de Uyuni was used as a filming location for the 2017 film Star Wars: The Last Jedi for planet Crait."

The coordinates are from a salt processing plant located in the edge of the salar closest to Uyuni town.
Kind: Salt Evaporation Pond

Is the place still active?: yes

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