City of Potosí

Silver from the Cerro Rico — the 'rich hill' looming over Potosí — flooded 16th-century Europe and briefly made this city, at over 4,000 metres, one of the largest and wealthiest anywhere; contemporaries counted it the world's greatest industrial complex. Ore crushed in water-powered mills fed by aqueducts and artificial lakes passed through the royal mint, the Casa de la Moneda, while the mita labourers who worked the mountain lived in their own quarters. UNESCO inscribed Potosí in 1987.