Oruro

Oruro (Hispanicized spelling) or Uru Uru[1] is a city in Bolivia with a population of 264,683 (2012 calculation),[2] about halfway between La Paz and Sucre in the Altiplano, approximately 3,709 meters (12,169 ft) above sea level. It is Bolivia's fifth-largest city by population, after Santa Cruz de la Sierra, El Alto, La Paz, and Cochabamba. It is the capital of the Department of Oruro and the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oruro. Oruro has been subject to cycles of boom and bust owing to its dependence on the mining industry, notably tin, tungsten (wolfram), silver and copper. The city was founded on November 1, 1606, by Don Manuel Castro de Padilla as a silver-mining center in the Urus region. At the time it was named Real Villa de San Felipe de Austria, after the Spanish monarch Philip III. It thrived for a while, but it was eventually abandoned as the silver mines became exhausted.[3]