Gran Chaco in the context of "Cultural imperialism"

Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco, warm valleys, high-altitude Andean plateaus, and snow-capped peaks, encompassing a wide range of climates and biomes across its regions and cities. It includes part of the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, along its eastern border. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west. The seat of government is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Llanos Orientales (eastern tropical lowlands), a mostly flat region in the east of the country with a diverse non-Andean culture.

The sovereign state of Bolivia is a constitutionally unitary state divided into nine departments. Its geography varies as the elevation fluctuates, from the western snow-capped peaks of the Andes to the eastern lowlands, situated within the Amazon basin. One-third of the country is within the Andean mountain range. With an area of 1,098,581 km (424,164 sq mi), Bolivia is the fifth-largest country in South America after Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Colombia, and, alongside Paraguay, is one of two landlocked countries in the Americas. It is the largest landlocked country in the Southern Hemisphere. Bolivia had a population of 11.4 million as of the latest census in 2024. It is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Mestizos, and the descendants of Europeans and Africans. Spanish is the official and predominant language, although 36 indigenous languages also have official status, of which the most commonly spoken are Guaraní, Aymara, and Quechua.

Cultural imperialism (also cultural colonialism) comprises the cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" describes practices in which a country engages culture (language, tradition, ritual, politics, economics) to create and maintain unequal social and economic relationships among social groups. Cultural imperialism often uses wealth, media power and violence to implement the system of cultural hegemony that legitimizes imperialism.

Cultural imperialism may take various forms, such as an attitude, a formal policy, or military action—insofar as each of these reinforces the empire's cultural hegemony. Research on the topic occurs in scholarly disciplines, and is especially prevalent in communication and media studies, education, foreign policy, history, international relations, linguistics, literature, post-colonialism, science, sociology, social theory, environmentalism, and sports.

The Indigenous peoples in Bolivia or Native Bolivians (Spanish: Bolivianos Nativos) are Bolivians who have predominantly or total Amerindian ancestry. They constitute anywhere from 38.7% to 62.05% of Bolivia's population, depending on different estimates, and they belong to 36 recognized ethnic groups. Aymara and Quechua are the largest groups. The geography of Bolivia includes the Andes, the Gran Chaco, the Yungas, the Chiquitania and the Amazon rainforest.

An additional 30–68% of the population is mestizo, having mixed European and Indigenous ancestry.

The Argentina–Bolivia border is the international boundary between Argentina and Bolivia. From west to east, the border goes from the Altiplano to extend to the Chaco flat through the tropical environment of the Yungas.

The Chaco War (Spanish: Guerra del Chaco, Guarani: Cháko Ñorairõ) was fought from 1932 to 1935. It was between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the northern part of the Gran Chaco region (known in Spanish as the Chaco Boreal), which was thought to be rich in petroleum. The war is also referred to as La Guerra de la Sed (Spanish for "The War of Thirst"), since it was fought in the semi-arid Chaco. It was the first South America war in which modern weapons (such as machine guns, armoured fighting vehicles and airplanes) were used, and also the bloodiest South America war of the 20th century — around 2% of the Bolivian population and 3% of Paraguayans were killed during the conflict.

During the war, both landlocked countries faced difficulties moving arms and supplies through neighbouring countries. Despite its income from mining and a larger and better-equipped army, problems with international trade and poor internal communications ultimately turned the tide against Bolivia. The war concluded at the Chaco Peace Conference in Buenos Aires in July 1938, at which both countries signed a peace treaty awarding three-quarters of the Gran Chaco to Paraguay.

Cranwell's horned frog (Ceratophrys cranwelli), also called commonly the Chacoan horned frog, is a terrestrial frog in the family Ceratophryidae. The species is endemic to the dry Gran Chaco region of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. It, like other members of its genus, Ceratophrys, is commonly called the Pac-man frog, because of its resemblance to the video game character of the same name. Most adult specimens range from 8–13 cm (3.1–5.1 in) long and can weigh up to 0.5 kg (1.1 lb).

A horse culture is a tribal group or community whose day-to-day life revolves around the herding and breeding of horses. Beginning with the domestication of the horse on the steppes of Eurasia, the horse transformed each society that adopted its use. Notable examples are the Mongols of Mongolia, the Scythian and Turkic nomads of Central Asia, the Plains Indians, the Guaycuru peoples of the Gran Chaco, and the Mapuche and Tehuelche of Patagonia after horses were imported from Europe, particularly from Spain, during the 16th century. A common form of leisure in these horse cultures was horse racing and placing bets on these races.

The clearing of woods and forests is the process by which vegetation, such as trees and bushes, together with their roots are permanently removed. The main aim of this process is to clear areas of forest, woodland or scrub in order to use the soil for another purpose, such as pasture land, arable farming, human settlement or the construction of roads or railways.

Many of the world's most prominent forests have suffered significant levels of clearing in recent years, including the Amazon. In the 2 years following the presidential election of Jair Bolsonaro, clearing in eastern Brazil increased by 27%.