Ember & Grain · Field Notes · Salts · Origin Atlas · Nº 10
Bolivian Salt
of the Salar de Uyuni
Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. Salt cut from the largest salt flat on earth, two miles up in the Andes.
20°08′ S · 67°29′ W
High on the Altiplano, at 3,663 meters, the land runs out in white. The Salar de Uyuni covers more than ten thousand square kilometers, and across all of it the ground rises and falls by less than a meter. The crust cracks into six-sided tiles. Volcanoes stand on the rim. In the rains a skin of water turns it into a mirror eighty miles wide, and the sky goes on below your feet.
Field notes
| Origin | Salar de Uyuni, Potosí, Bolivia |
| Position | 20°08′ S · 67°29′ W |
| Altitude | 3,663 m (12,000 ft) |
| Area | 10,582 km²; the largest salt flat on earth |
| Method | Cut by hand, sun-dried in mounds |
| Makers | The salt cooperative of Colchani |
Continue in The Origins Atlas
The rest of this chapter lives in the book: the full story of the place, how the salt is made, the people who keep the tradition, and the hand-drawn map.
- The Place · a lake that dried
- The Harvest · by hand on the white
- The People · of the high plain
Sources: Wikipedia, “Salar de Uyuni”; Google Arts & Culture; EJAtlas. Imagery is illustrative and AI-generated.