🇧🇴 Bolivia · The South, salt flats and deserts
For many, Sucre is the most beautiful city in Bolivia, and it is not hard to see why. They call it the 'White City' because its colonial houses and churches wear whitewashed façades of a luminous white that, under the valley sun, give it an air of elegance and calm. Constitutional capital of the country and birthplace of its independence, its historic center —a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1991— holds one of the best preserved colonial ensembles in South America, with tree-lined squares, flowering courtyards, balconies and churches of great value.
But Sucre is not just an open-air museum: it is a living city, a university city with a cultured feel and a mild, spring-like climate that makes you want to stay. At some 2,750 meters, far gentler than La Paz or Potosí, its sunny days and cool nights make it a perfect place to slow down, walk everywhere, sit in a café on the square, study Spanish (it is one of South America's great destinations for that) or gather your strength before or after the rigors of the altiplano and the salt flat.
This guide walks Sucre with a practical, warm eye: the Casa de la Libertad where Bolivia was born, the churches and convents, lookouts such as La Recoleta, the Cal Orck'o dinosaur tracks, the colorful Tarabuco Indigenous market and the corners of the historic center. Add an ideal climate, good food and a relaxed atmosphere, and you have one of the most charming and easiest cities to enjoy in all of Bolivia.
Before it was Sucre, this valley city went by several names. Founded by the Spanish around 1538-1540 as Villa de la Plata de la Nueva Toledo (later known as La Plata or Charcas), it became an important political, religious and judicial center of Upper Peru: the powerful Real Audiencia de Charcas and an archbishopric operated here, and here the University of San Francisco Xavier was founded, one of the oldest in the Americas. Its pleasant climate and its administrative role made it the residence of the colonial elite, who raised the white churches and mansions that still give it its face today. The city played a leading part in the independence struggle: the Chuquisaca uprising of 1809 is considered one of the first cries for independence in the Americas. And it was here that, on 6 August 1825, the act of independence was signed and the Republic of Bolivia was born, named in honor of Simón Bolívar; the city was renamed Sucre in tribute to Marshal Antonio José de Sucre, hero of the independence struggle and first president. Sucre was the country's capital; after the civil war of the late 19th century, the seat of government and Congress moved to La Paz, but Sucre kept the title of constitutional capital and the seat of the judiciary. In 1991 Unesco recognized its historic center as World Heritage. The full history, with the Audiencia de Charcas, the cry of 1809 and the founding of Bolivia, is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The department where Bolivia was born: land of the White City of Sucre, the country's constitutional capital, seat of the Audiencia of Charcas and of the 'first libertarian cry of the Americas', with the textile culture of Tarabuco and the dinosaur footprints of Cal Orcko.
Read the history of Chuquisaca →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Few cities can say they changed their name four times before becoming the birthplace of an entire country. Villa de la Plata, La Plata, Charcas, Chuquisaca and, at last, Sucre: each name marks a different stage in the life of this valley city, born in the 16th century in the middle of the Spanish conquest and colonization of Upper Peru. It was founded around 1538-1540 —the most widely accepted date is 29 September 1538, with captain Pedro de Anzúrez, marquis of Campo Redondo, as its founder— under the first of those names, Villa de la Plata de la Nueva Toledo, in a mild valley of the Charcas region, on land that had earlier been under Inca influence and inhabited by Andean peoples such as the Yampara. Over its history the city took several more names: La Plata, Charcas and, colloquially, Chuquisaca, before finally adopting Sucre.
The choice of site was no accident. The valley offered a pleasant, mild climate, far gentler than the freezing heights of the altiplano, along with good land. That kind weather, combined with its strategic position, made the city an ideal place to settle the colonial administration and the elite, who preferred its spring-like climate to the harshness of mining centers such as Potosí, much higher up and close by.
From the start, Villa de la Plata shaped up as a center of political, judicial, religious and educational power rather than a mining town. That vocation would mark its character for centuries: a city of laws, churches, universities and stately mansions, where the institutions governing a vast region were concentrated. Its white façades, which in time would earn it the nickname 'White City', began to give it its elegant, luminous look.
The city's great leap in importance came when it became the seat of the Real Audiencia de Charcas, created by royal decree in 1559. The Audiencia was the highest court of justice and a governing body with jurisdiction over an immense territory, taking in much of what is now southern Bolivia and reaching into neighboring regions. That put La Plata at the center of political and judicial power for the whole of Upper Peru.
To the judicial and administrative role was added religious weight: the city was the seat of an archbishopric and filled up with churches, convents and religious orders that left an extraordinary architectural heritage. And to that was added intellectual weight: in 1624 the Universidad Mayor, Real y Pontificia de San Francisco Xavier de Chuquisaca was founded, one of the oldest universities in the Americas, which turned the city into a hub of study, above all of law and theology.
That combination —supreme court, archbishopric and university— made the city a singular place in Spanish America: a town of jurists, clergy, students and intellectuals, refined and cultured, where the ideas of the age were debated. Its closeness to fabulously rich Potosí, whose silver circulated through the region, also fed the prosperity and elegance of La Plata, which filled with stately mansions. That enlightened atmosphere would prove decisive when the winds of independence began to blow.
Chuquisaca's enlightened, university atmosphere, together with the political tensions shaking the Spanish empire after Napoleon's invasion of the peninsula, turned the city into one of the first centers of pro-independence agitation in all of the Americas. On 25 May 1809 an uprising against the colonial authorities broke out in Chuquisaca, the episode known as the 'Chuquisaca cry' or the 'Chuquisaca revolution'.
This movement, led by figures tied to the Audiencia, the university and the city's enlightened circles, is regarded by many historians as one of the first cries for freedom in Spanish America, coming even before more famous movements that would follow in other cities on the continent. Although it was put down, it lit a flame that would not go out.
The example of Chuquisaca, and shortly afterwards that of La Paz, marked the start of a long, hard process of independence wars in Upper Peru that would drag on for more than fifteen years. The region was the setting for military campaigns, for the struggles of the guerrilla 'republiquetas' and for the passage of the great liberating armies. The city that had been the cradle of the ideas was destined to be, too, the cradle of the new country that would be born of those struggles.
After more than fifteen years of independence wars, and with the patriot victory in Upper Peru sealed by the decisive battle of Ayacucho (1824) and the final campaign of Marshal Antonio José de Sucre, the moment came to settle the region's fate. With an assembly of deputies gathered in the city of Chuquisaca, on 6 August 1825 the act of independence was signed that gave rise to a new nation: the República de Bolívar, soon called Bolivia, in honor of the liberator Simón Bolívar.
The founding act took place in the city, in the building known today as the Casa de la Libertad, which became for that reason the country's most symbolic place. The original document is kept there as a national relic. Bolívar was the first honorary president, and Marshal Sucre, hero of the independence struggle, took office as one of the first leaders of the new state.
In recognition of the marshal's role, the city changed its name to Sucre, which it keeps to this day. The new capital of the young republic was, then, the same city of jurists, clergy and students that had been the cradle of the pro-independence ideas and the scene of one of the first cries for freedom in the Americas. Sucre was thus born with a double title: capital of the country and cradle of its independence, a distinction that marks its identity forever.
For much of the 19th century, Sucre was the capital of Bolivia and the seat of its powers. But toward the end of the century a conflict took shape that would change that. The growth of La Paz, driven by the tin boom and by its economic and demographic dynamism, produced a growing rivalry with Sucre, more traditional and tied to the silver past. On top of that regional tension came political disputes between conservatives (based in Sucre) and liberals (strong in La Paz), and debates about how the state should be organized (federalism versus unitarism).
Those tensions led in 1899 to the so-called Federal War, a civil confrontation that ended with victory for the La Paz and liberal side. The most lasting consequence was the de facto transfer of the seat of government: the executive and Congress (the legislature) began operating in La Paz, which became the seat of the national government, while Sucre kept the title of capital and the seat of the judiciary.
Out of that arrangement comes one of Bolivia's best known quirks: in practice it has a 'shared capital'. Sucre is the constitutional capital and the seat of the Supreme Court of Justice, while La Paz is the seat of the government and of Parliament. That duality, born of the 1899 war, still holds and is a source of pride and of claims for the people of Sucre, who guard the title of capital of the country jealously.
Despite having lost the seat of government, Sucre kept something no other Bolivian city has to the same degree: an extraordinarily well preserved colonial historic center. Through the 20th century the city held on to its stately, academic, unhurried character, with its colonial grid intact, its white façades, its churches, convents and mansions, in a valley with a privileged climate.
That value was recognized internationally in 1991, when Unesco inscribed the Historic City of Sucre on the World Heritage list. The listing values the quality and coherence of its colonial and republican architectural ensemble —one of the finest examples of a Spanish American city— and its historical importance as the cradle of independence and of the Bolivian nation. The famous white aesthetic, kept up as a rule, is an essential part of that heritage.
Today Sucre combines that historic treasure with a very contemporary life: it is a university city, full of Bolivian and foreign students (many drawn by its Spanish schools), with a lively food and cultural scene and a climate that makes you want to stay. To its colonial heritage are added draws such as the Cal Orck'o dinosaur tracks and the rich textile world of the region's Indigenous peoples, like those of Tarabuco. Sucre is, in short, a city where the history of Bolivia can be breathed on every white corner, without ceasing to be a living and welcoming place.