Murillo Province

1 MURILLO PROVINCE
Murillo Province is situated in the middle part of La Paz Department, its borders Larecaja and Caranavi provinces to the north, Nor and Sur Yungas to the east, Aroma and Loayza tothe south and Ingavi and Los Andes to the west. The province covers a total area of about 3.8 thousands of Km2. The province is sub-divided into nine 5 municipalities and 746 communities andvillages. Out of those 5 municipalities, 2 are urban: La Paz city, the biggest city in Bolivia and El Alto.
Climate
There are two differenced regions: the Valleys, with a warm and wet climate, and theAltiplano, that covers most of the Province’s area.
The Altiplano, is dry with an average precipitation of 406 mm per year, the rainy seasons starts in December, and ends in March, some years also startsas early as September and lasts till May.
The Altiplano is also cold with an average temperature of 7.1 °C, and a warm season that starts with the rainy season, the cold season starts in May and endsin August, no crops can survive that cold climate.
Frost
The Frost cause mechanical damage to the crops, and are very dangerous specially when they are growing; the months with a bigger incidenceare May to September (with more than 25 days per month with frost).
Hailstorm
The Hailstorm damage the crops and can cause the crop to be lost, risky months are November to May.
Table 1 Incidence(days) of frost and hailstorm per month
J A S O N D E F M A M J Total
Hailstorm 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 6

Frost 30 28 25 19 12 6 1 4 6 18 29 30 208

Fuente : SENAMHI(1997)
Population
The Murillo province has more than 63% of the Departmental population, with almost 1.5 million of inhabitants, most of them, 98 %, live in the urban area
Table 2 Population ofMurillo Province and its Municipalities, related to La Paz
DETAIL TOTAL URBAN AREA RURAL AREA
La Paz Department 2,350,466 1,552,455 798,011
Murillo Province 1,484,328 1,447,304 37,024
La Paz city,...