Chapter I.
AREA AND POPULATION.
The area of Bolivia, as hitherto published, presents an irreconcilable confusion of figures, ranging all the way from 106,180 to 832,176 English square miles. In his Nociones de Geografia de Bolivia, published at Sucre in 1889, Senor Justo Leigue Moreno gives the area of the country at 2,155,329 square kilometers, or 832,176 English square miles; The Hand Book of the American Republics, 784,554 English square miles; The Statesman's Year Book, 772,548 English square miles; The American Encyclopedia, 697,288 English square miles; The Encyclopedia Britannica, 536,200 English square miles; The Bolivian Delegate to the International American Conference, in his Railway Report, at 275,000 square kilometers, or 106,180 English square miles. The fact that no two of these authorities agree is perhaps explained, with the exception of the latter, which is clearly an error, by their including or excluding in whole or in part in their estimates the disputed territory claimed by the Republic. Hon. Manuel Vicente Ballivian, of La Paz, one of the most scholarly and distinguished authors of Bolivia, and until 1890 director of the Government Department of Boundaries, gives the official estimates of the area of the Republic, and how determined. Under date May 26, 1892, he says:
The total area of the Republic, not including the territory of El Chaco, claimed alike by Bolivia, Paraguay, and the Argentine, is 1,546,818.27 square kilometers, or 597,271 English square miles.
