NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 26, 2018

Q: Bolivians staged demonstrations across the country on Friday to demand sea access for their landlocked country. Where is Bolivia?

Circle the area on this map


Q: Bolivia made an emotional appeal earlier last week for the International Court of Justice to order its southwestern neighbor to grant it access to the sea. Which of these neighboring nations is southwest of Bolivia?

A. Argentina

B. Brazil

C. Chile

D. Peru


C. Bolivia lost its only seacoast to neighboring Chile during a war from 1879 to 1883 and the nation has demanded ocean access for generations. Chile offers unrestricted but not sovereign maritime access to Bolivia under terms of a 1904 treaty which Chile says settled the boundary issue once and for all.


Q: Bolivia wants a seaport on what body of water?

A. Atlantic Ocean

B. Caribbean Sea

C. Gulf of Mexico

D. Pacific Ocean


D. Peru and Chile separate Bolivia from the Pacific, the closest sea to the landlocked nation.


Q: Bolivia wants a sovereign land corridor through Chile along its border with Peru. The corridor would run through the world’s driest desert. What is the name of this desert?

A. Atacama

B. Gobi

C. Mojave

D. Sahara


A. The territorial dispute between Bolivia and Chile began after the discovery of rich deposits of nitrate, silver and copper in the otherwise barren lands of the Atacama Desert. The dispute ultimately led to the War of the Pacific in 1879 in which Chile fought both Bolivia and Peru to conquer the disputed territory.


Q: South America’s only other landlocked country is on Bolivia’s southeastern border. What is that other landlocked nation?

A. Ecuador

B. Paraguay

C. Uruguay

D. Venezuela


B. Paraguay and Bolivia are the only landlocked countries in the Americas. Paraguay is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest.