Salar de Uyuni
Nature
The largest salt flat in the world, and after rain the largest mirror.
High in the Andes of Bolivia lies a white plain of salt of more than 10,000 square kilometres. Long ago there was a lake here. It dried up and left behind a crust of salt metres thick.
When a thin layer of rain lies on the salt, the plain mirrors the sky so perfectly that you cannot see where the ground ends and the clouds begin.
- of salt
- 10,000+ km²
- above sea level
- 3,650 m
- tonnes of salt, roughly
- 10 billion
- 1
The plain is so flat that satellites use it to check their instruments.
- 2
Under the salt lies a large part of the world's lithium, which is used in batteries.
- 3
There is a hotel here built from blocks of salt.
Question 1 of 2
What was here before the salt?
- Atacama DesertThe driest desert in the world outside the poles, between the Andes and the ocean.
- Lake TiticacaA lake as big as a small sea, high in the Andes.
- Machu PicchuA city of the Incas, hidden high in the Andes.
- Nazca LinesGiant drawings in the desert that you can only see from the air.
It is in Bolivia.
Read about Bolivia