Oruro is one of the nine departments that make up the Plurinational State of Bolivia. Its capital is the homonymous Oruro. It is located in the west of the country, bounded on the north by La Paz, on the east by Cochabamba, on the south east by Potosí and on the west by Chile. With a territorial surface of 53,588 km², Oruro is the third least extensive department in the country, ahead of Chuquisaca and Tarija. The department was created during the government of the marshal of Ayacucho Antonio José de Sucre on September 5,1826 by supreme decree. The department is conformed by 15 provinces which at the same time are divided into 35 municipalities.
Its name derives from the oldest millenarian civilization of the Bolivian Andesː the Urus. According to official data from the National Institute of Statistics of Bolivia, in 2016 the economy of the entire Department of Oruro reached US $ 1,663 million dollars, which represents 4.89% of the Total Economy of Bolivia. Regarding per capita income, the department closed the year 2016 with US $ 3,165 dollars on average for each Oruro.